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Stein 
Gabriel  and  the  hour  book 


MW* 


UNIVERSITY  OF  N.C.  AT  CHAPEL  HILL 


00022229367 


■A 


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u3  T  ; 


gabriel  and 
the:  hour  book 


STORIES  BY 

EVALEEN  STEIN 


Children's  Stories $1.65 

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Gabriel  and  the  Hour  Book      .     „  1.65 

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L.  C.  PAGE   &  COMPANY  (Inc.) 
53  Beacon  Street,  Boston,  Mass. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  North  Carolina  at  Chapel  Hill 


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wlr                                         ^S^^^l                             "•'•?&& 

,— majpp,w      jM 

,;-:;-f,  M 

■"*^B- 

Gabriel 


3    s     v 


Copyright,  1906,  by 

L.  C  Page  &  Company 

(incorporated) 

All  rights  reserved 


Made  in  U.S.A. 


Thirteenth  Impression,  October,  1925 
Fourteenth  Impression,  August,  1926 
Fifteenth  Impression,  August,  1927 


PRINTED  BY  C.  H.  SIMONDS  COMPANY 
BOSTON,  MASS.,  U.  S.  A. 


J 


TO 

ffly  jFrtetrt 
Caroline   H.  Griffiths 


cr 
o 

& 
cr 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

PAGE 

I. 

The  Little  Colour  Grinder  .          , 

I 

II. 

Brother  Stephen's  Inspiration 

*9 

III. 

Gabriel  Interviews  the  Abbot 

35 

IV. 

The  Hour  Book 

49 

V. 

The  Count's  Tax 

65 

VI. 

Gabriel's  Prayer 

74 

VII. 

The  Book  Goes  to  Lady  Anne 

.       89 

VIII. 

Lady  Anne  Writes  to  the  King 

.       99 

IX. 

The  King's  Messenger 

.     116 

X. 

Gabriel's  Christmas 

.     136 

XI. 

The  King's  Illuminator 

162 

LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS 


Gabriel  Frontispiece 

"  He  saw  the  Abbot  walking  up  and  down  "  .  38 

'*  Dreaming  of  all  the  beautiful  things  he  meant  to  paint  "      59 
"Taking  down  the  book  ...  he  unwrapped  and  un- 
clasped it "  .  .         .         .         .  95 
"  Began  slowly  to  turn  over  the  pages  "        .          .          .105 
"  He  passed  a  little  peasant  boy  "        •         .         «         .142 


Gabriel  and  the  Hour  Book 

CHAPTER   I. 

THE     LITTLE    COLOUR     GRINDER 

•T  was  a  bright  morning 
of  early  April,  many 
hundred  years  ago;  and 
through  all  the  fields  and 
meadows  of  Normandy  the  vio- 
lets and  cuckoo-buds  were  just 
beginning  to  peep  through  the 
tender  green  of  the  young  grass. 
The  rows  of  tall  poplar-trees  that 
everywhere,  instead  of  fences, 
served  to  mark  off  the  farms  of 
the  country  folk,    waved    in    the 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

spring  wind  like  great,  pale  green 
plumes ;  and  among  their  branches 
the  earliest  robins  and  field-fares 
were  gaily  singing  as  a  little  boy 
stepped  out  from  a  small  thatched 
cottage  standing  among  the  fields, 
and  took  his  way  along  the  high- 
road. 

That  Gabriel  Viaud  was  a 
peasant  lad,  any  one  could  have 
told  from  the  blouse  of  blue 
homespun,  and  the  wooden  shoes 
which  he  wore;  and  that  he  felt 
the  gladness  of  the  April  time 
could  easily  be  known  by  the 
happy  little  song  he  began  to  sing 
to  himself,  and  by  the  eager  de- 
light with  which  he  now  and  then 
stooped  to  pluck  a  blue  violet  or 
to  gather  a  handful  of  golden 
cuckoo-buds. 


Jl  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

A  mile  or  two  behind  him,  and 
hidden  by  a  bend  in  the  road,  lay 
the  little  village  of  St.  Martin- 
de-Bouchage;  while  in  the  soft 
blue  distance  ahead  of  him  rose 
the  gray  walls  of  St.  Martin's 
Abbey,  whither  he  was  going. 

Indeed,  for  almost  a  year  now 
the  little  boy  had  been  trudging 
every  day  to  the  Abbey,  where 
he  earned  a  small  sum  by  waiting 
upon  the  good  brothers  who 
dwelt  there,  and  who  made  the 
beautiful  painted  books  for  which 
the  Abbey  had  become  famous. 
Gabriel  could  grind  and  mix  their 
colours  for  them,  and  prepare  the 
parchment  on  which  they  did 
their  writing,  and  could  do  many 
other  little  things  that  helped 
them  in  their  work. 

3 


3     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

The  lad  enjoyed  his  tasks  at 
the  Abbey,  and,  above  all,  de- 
lighted in  seeing  the  beautiful 
things  at  which  the  brothers  were 
always  busy ;  yet,  as  he  now  drew 
near  the  gateway,  he  could  not 
help  but  give  a  little  sigh,  for  it 
was  so  bright  and  sunny  out-of- 
doors.  He  smiled,  though,  as  he 
looked  at  the  gay  bunches  of 
blossoms  with  which  he  had  quite 
filled  his  hands,  and  felt  that  at 
least  he  was  taking  a  bit  of  the 
April  in  with  him,  as  he  crossed 
the  threshold  and  entered  a  large 
room. 

"  Good  morrow,  Gabriel,"  called 
out  several  voices  as  he  came  in, 
for  the  lad  was  a  general  favour- 
ite with  the  brothers ;  and  Ga- 
briel, respectfully  taking   off   his 


Jl  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  jj 

blue  peasant  cap,  gave  a  pleas- 
ant "  good  morrow  "  to  each. 

The  room  in  which  he  stood 
had  plain  stone  walls  and  a  floor 
of  paved  stone,  and  little  furni- 
ture, except  a  number  of  solidly 
made  benches  and  tables.  These 
were  placed  beneath  a  row  of  high 
windows,  and  the  tables  were  cov- 
ered with  writing  and  painting 
materials  and  pieces  of  parch- 
ment; for  the  brotherhood  of  St. 
Martin's  was  very  industrious. 

In  those  days,  —  it  was  four 
hundred  years  ago,  —  printed 
books  were  very  few,  and  almost 
unknown  to  most  people ;  for 
printing-presses  had  been  invented 
only  a  few  years,  and  so  by  far 
the  greater  number  of  books  in 
the  world  were  still  made  by  the 

s 


Jl  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

patient  labour  of  skilful  hands ; 
the  work  usually  being  done  by 
the  monks,  of  whom  there  were 
very  many  at  that  time. 

These  monks,  or  brothers,  as 
they  were  often  called,  lived  in 
monasteries  and  abbeys,  and  were 
men  who  banded  themselves  to- 
gether in  brotherhoods,  taking 
solemn  vows  never  to  have  homes 
of  their  own  or  to  mingle  in  the 
daily  life  of  others,  but  to  devote 
their  lives  to  religion;  for  they 
believed  that  they  could  serve 
God  better  by  thus  shutting  them- 
selves off  from  the  world. 

And  so  it  came  about  that 
the  brothers,  having  more  time 
and  more  learning  than  most 
other  people  of  those  days,  made 
it    their  chief   work    to  preserve 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


and  multiply  all  the  books  that 
were  worth  keeping.  These  they 
wrote  out  on  parchment  (for  paper 
was  very  scarce  so  long  ago),  and 
then  ornamented  the  pages  with 
such  beautiful  painted  borders  of 
flowers  and  birds  and  saints  and 
angels,  and  such  lovely  initial 
letters,  all  in  bright  colours  and 
gold,  that  to  this  day  large  num- 
bers of  the  beautiful  books  made 
by  the  monks  are  still  kept  among 
the  choicest  treasures  of  the  mu- 
seums and  great  libraries  of  the 
world. 

And  few  of  all  those  wonder- 
ful old  illuminations  (for  so  the 
painted  ornaments  were  called) 
were  lovelier  than  the  work  of  the 
brotherhood  of  St.  Martin's.  Ga- 
briel felt  very  proud  even  to  grind 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


the  colours  for  them  But  as  he 
passed  over  to  one  of  the  tables 
and  began  to  make  ready  his 
paint  mortar,  the  monk  who  had 
charge  of  the  writing-room  called 
to  him,  saying : 

"  Gabriel,  do  not  get  out  thy 
work  here,  for  the  Abbot  hath 
just  ordered  that  some  one  must 
help  Brother  Stephen,  who  is 
alone  in  the  old  chapter-house. 
He  hath  a  special  book  to  make, 
and  his  colour-grinder  is  fallen 
ill ;  so  go  thou  at  once  and  take 
Jacques's  place." 

So  Gabriel  left  the  writing- 
room  and  passed  down  the  long 
corridor  that  led  to  the  chapter- 
house. This  was  a  room  the 
brothers  had  kept  for  years  as  a 

meeting-place,  when  they  and  the 

8 


J     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     E 

Abbot,  who  governed  them  all, 
wished  to  talk  over  the  affairs  of 
the  Abbey ;  but  as  it  had  at  last 
grown  too  small  for  them,  they 
had  built  a  new  and  larger  one; 
and  so  the  old  chapter-house  was 
seldom  used  any  more. 

Gabriel  knew  this,  and  he  won- 
dered much  why  Brother  Ste- 
phen chose  to  work  there  rather 
than  in  the  regular  writing-room 
with  the  others.  He  supposed, 
however,  that,  for  some  reason  of 
his  own,  Brother  Stephen  pre- 
ferred to  be  alone. 

He  did  not  know  that  the 
monk,  at  that  moment,  wTas  sitting 
moodily  by  his  work-table,  his 
eyes  staring  aimlessly  ahead  of 
him,  and  his  hands  dropped  idly 
in  his  lap.      For  Brother  Stephen 


a  i      j.' 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


was  feeling  very  cross  and  un- 
happy and  out  of  sorts  with  all 
the  world.  And  this  was  the  rea- 
son :  poor  Brother  Stephen  had 
entered  the  Abbey  when  a  lad 
scarcely  older  than  Gabriel.  He 
had  come  of  good  family,  but  had 
been  left  an  orphan  with  no  one 
to  care  for  him,  and  for  want  of 
other  home  had  been  sent  to 
the  Abbey,  to  be  trained  for 
the  brotherhood ;  for  in  those 
days  there  were  few  places 
where  fatherless  and  motherless 
children  could  be  taken  care 
of. 

As  little  Jean  (for  this  was  his 
name  before  he  joined  the  monks, 
when  one's  own  name  was  always 
changed)  grew  up,  he  took  the 
solemn  vows  which  bound  him  to 

xo 


J     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK    K 

the  rules  of  the  brotherhood  with- 
out realizing  what  it  all  would 
mean  to  him ;  for  Brother  Ste- 
phen was  a  born  artist ;  and,  by 
and  by,  he  began  to  feel  that 
while  life  in  the  Abbey  was  well 
for  most  of  the  brothers,  for  him 
it  was  not  well.  He  wanted  to 
be  free  to  wander  about  the  world  ; 
to  paint  pictures  of  many  things ; 
and  to  go  from  city  to  city,  and 
see  and  study  the  work  of  the 
world  s  great  artists. 

It  is  true  he  spent  the  greater 
part  of  his  time  in  the  Abbey 
working  on  the  illuminated  books, 
and  this  he  loved ;  yet  it  did  not 
wholly  satisfy  him.  He  longed 
to  paint  other  things,  and,  above 
all,  his   artist    nature    longed  for 

freedom  from  all  the  little  rules 

ii 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


of  daily  life  that  governed  the 
days   of  the  brotherhood. 

Brother  Stephen  had  brooded 
much  over  this  desire  for  free- 
dom, and  only  the  day  before  had 
sought  out  the  Abbot  of  St. 
Martin's  and  asked  to  be  released 
from  the  vows  of  obedience  which 
he  had  taken  years  before,  but 
which  now  he  found  so  hard  to 
live  up  to.  But,  to  his  great  dis- 
appointment, the  Abbot  had  re- 
fused to  grant  his  request. 

The  Abbot  had  several  reasons 
for  this  refusal ;  one  of  them  was 
that  he  himself  dearly  loved  all 
the  little  daily  ceremonies  of  the 
Abbey,  and  he  could  not  under- 
stand why  any  one  who  had  once 
lived  there  could  prefer  a  life  in 
the  world.      He  really  thought  it 

12 


a     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

was  for  Brother  Stephen's  own 
good  that  he  should  stay  in  the 
brotherhood. 

And  then,  too,  perhaps  there 
was  another  reason  less  to  the 
Abbot's  credit ;  and  this  reason 
was  that  of  all  the  beautiful  illu- 
minated books  for  which  the 
Abbey  of  St.  Martin's  had  be- 
come so  famous,  none  were  quite 
so  exquisitely  done  as  those  made 
by  Brother  Stephen.  So  per- 
haps the  Abbot  did  not  wish  to 
lose  so  skilful  an  artist  from 
the  work-room  of  the  Abbey, 
and  especially  at  this  particular 
time.  For  just  before  Brother 
Stephen  had  had  his  talk  with 
the  Abbot,  a  messenger  from  the 
city  of  Paris  had  come  to  the 
Abbey,    bearing    an    order    from 

13 


3|     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

the  king,  Louis  XII.,  who 
reigned  over  France,  and  Nor- 
mandy also,  which  was  a  part 
of  France. 

Now  the  following  winter,  the 
king  was  to  wed  the  Lady  Anne 
of  Bretagne ;  and  as  Lady  Anne 
was  a  great  admirer  and  col- 
lector of  beautiful  painted  books, 
the  king  thought  no  gift  would 
please  his  bride  quite  so  much  as 
a  piece  of  fine  illumination;  and 
he  decided  that  it  should  be  an 
hour  book.  These  books  were 
so  called  because  in  them  were 
written  different  parts  of  the 
Bible,  intended  to  be  read  at  cer- 
tain hours  of  the  day ;  for  most 
people  at  that  time  were  very 
devout,  and  the  great  ladies  espe- 
cially were  very  fond  of    having 

14 


H  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  ft 

their  hour  books  made  as  beauti- 
ful as  possible. 

As  King  Louis  thought  over 
the  best  places  where  he  might 
have  his  bride's  gift  painted,  at 
last  he  made  up  his  mind  to  send 
to  the  monks  of  St.  Martin's.  He 
commanded  that  the  hour  book  be 
done  in  the  most  beautiful  style, 
and  that  it  must  be  finished  by 
the  following  December. 

The  Abbot  was  delighted  with 
the  honour  the  king  had  shown 
the  Abbey  in  sending  this  order; 
and  he  determined  that  Brother 
Stephen  should  stay  and  make 
the  entire  book,  as  no  one  else 
wrote  so  evenly,  or  made  quite 
such  lovely  initials  and  borders  as 
did  he. 

When  the  Abbot  told  this  to 
15 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


Brother  Stephen,  however,  it  was 
a  pity  that  he  did  so  in  such  a 
cold  and  haughty  way  that  alto- 
gether Brother  Stephen's  anger 
was  aroused,  for  he  had  a  rather 
unruly  temper;  and  so,  smarting 
under  the  disappointment  of  not 
receiving  his  liberty,  and  feeling 
that  the  book  for  Lady  Anne 
was  one  cause  of  this,  he  had 
spoken  angrily  and  disrespectfully 
to  the  Abbot,  and  refused  point- 
blank  to  touch  the  kings  order. 

At  this  the  Abbot  in  his  turn 
became  angry,  and  declared  that 
Brother  Stephen  should  be  com- 
pelled to  paint  the  hour  book 
whether  he  wished  to  or  not ;  that 
he  must  do  it  as  punishment  for 
his  unruly  conduct ;  and  the 
Abbot  threatened,  moreover,  that 

16 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  gj 

if  he  did  not  obey,  he  would  be 
placed  under  the  ban  of  the 
Church,  which  was  considered  by 
all  the  brotherhood  as  a  dreadful 
misfortune. 

And  so  with  this  threat  hang- 
ing over  him,  that  very  morning, 
just  before  Gabriel  reached  the 
Abbey,  Brother  Stephen  had  been 
sent  to  the  old  chapter-house, 
where  he  was  ordered  to  work  by 
himself,  and  to  begin  the  book  at 
once.  And  to  complete  his  hu- 
miliation, and  for  fear  he  might 
try  to  run  away,  the  Abbot  caused 
him  to  be  chained  to  one  of  the 
legs  of  the  heavy  work-table  ;  and 
this  chain  he  was  to  wear  every 
day  during  working  hours. 

Now  all  this  made  Brother 
Stephen  very  angry  and  unhappy, 


|]  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  E 

and  his  heart  was  full  of  bitter- 
ness toward  the  Abbot  and  all  of 
the  brotherhood  and  the  world  in 
general,  when  all  at  once  he  heard 
Gabriel's  knock  at  the  door;  and 
then,  in  another  moment,  the  door 
was  softly  pushed  open,  and  there, 
on  the  threshold,  stood  the  little 
boy. 


m"."v'iL.ivi."nW,wtww','i"-*1'1  -!-:,  .,  aaaaaai  ggsasas  ...'  -"  ,■    ",",'  ■,  i ,  c  maeas 

GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


CHAPTER    II. 

BROTHER    STEPHEN'S     INSPIRATION 

SABRIEL  knew  nothing 

of      Brother      Stephen's 

troubles,     and     so     was 

smiling     happily    as     he 

stepped    into    the    room,  holding 

his  cap   in  one  hand,  while  with 

his  other  arm  he  hugged  to  him 

his    large    bunch   of    violets    and 

cuckoo-buds.      Indeed    he  looked 

so  bright  and  full  of  life  that  even 

Brother  Stephen  felt  the  effect  of 

it,  and  his  frown  began  to  smooth 

out  a  little  as  he  said : 

"  Well,  my  lad,  who  art  thou  ?  " 
19 


Jl    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

"  I  am  Gabriel  Viaud,  Brother 
Stephen,"  answered  the  boy, 
"  and  I  have  come  to  help  you ; 
for  they  told  me  Jacques  is  fallen 
ill.  What  would  you  like  me  to 
do  first  ? " 

To  this  Brother  Stephen 
scarcely  knew  what  to  reply. 
He  was  certainly  in  no  mood  for 
work.  He  was  still  very,  very 
angry,  and  thought  himself  terri- 
bly misused  by  the  Abbot;  and 
though  he  greatly  dreaded  the 
latter's  threats,  he  had  almost 
reached  the  point  of  defying  him 
and  the  king  and  everybody  else, 
no  matter  what  dreadful  thing 
happened  to   him  afterward. 

But  then  as  he  looked  again  at 
the  bright-faced  little  boy  stand- 
ing there,  and  seeming  so  eager 

20 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

to  help,  he  began  to  relent  more 
and  more ;  and  besides,  he  found 
it  decidedly  embarrassing  to  try 
to  explain  things  to  Gabriel. 

So  after  a  little  pause,  he  said 
to  him  :  "  Gabriel,  I  am  not  ready 
for  thee  at  this  moment ;  go  sit 
on  yonder  bench.  I  wish  to 
think  out  a  matter  which  is  per- 
plexing me."  Then  as  Gabriel 
obediently  went  over  to  the  bench 
and  seated  himself,  he  added : 
"  Thou  canst  pass  the  time  look- 
ing at  the  books  on  the  shelf 
above  thee." 

So  while  Brother  Stephen  was 
trying  to  make  up  his  mind  as  to 
what  he  would  do,  Gabriel  took 
down  one  of  the  books,  and  was 
soon  absorbed  in  its  pages.  Pres- 
ently, as  he  turned  a  new  one,  he 

21 


H  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  jj 

gave  a  little  involuntary  exclama- 
tion of  delight.  At  this  Brother 
Stephen  noticed  him,  and  — 

"  Ah ! "  he  said,  "  what  hast  thou 
found  that  seems  to  please  thee?" 

"  Oh,  sir,"  answered  Gabriel, 
"this  is  the  most  beautiful  initial 
letter  I  have  ever  seen  ! " 

Now  Gabriel  did  not  know  that 
the  book  had  been  made  a  few 
years  before  by  Brother  Stephen 
himself,  and  so  he  had  no  idea 
how  much  it  pleased  the  brother 
to  have  his  work  admired. 

Indeed,  most  people  who  do 
good  work  of  any  kind  oftentimes 
feel  the  need  of  praise;  not  flat- 
tery, but  the  real  approval  of  some 
one  who  understands  what  they 
are  trying  to  do.  It  makes  the 
workman  or  artist  feel  that  if  his 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


work  is  liked  by  somebody,  it  is 
worth  while  to  try  to  do  more  and 
better. 

Poor  Brother  Stephen  did  not 
get  much  of  this  needed  praise, 
for  many  of  the  other  monks  at 
the  Abbey  were  envious  of  him, 
and  so  were  unwilling  really  to 
admire  his  work;  while  the  Ab- 
bot was  so  cold  and  haughty  and  so 
taken  up  with  his  own  affairs,  that 
he  seldom  took  the  trouble  to  say 
what  he  liked  or  disliked. 

So  when  Brother  Stephen  saw 
Gabriel's  eager  admiration,  he  felt 
pleased  indeed  ;  for  Gabriel  had 
a  nice  taste  in  artistic  things,  and 
seemed  instinctively  to  pick  out 
the  best  points  of  anything  he 
looked  at.  And  when,  in  his  en- 
thusiasm, he  carried  the  book  over 

23 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  K 

and  began  to  tell  Brother  Stephen 
why  he  so  much  admired  the  paint- 
ing, without  knowing  it,  he  really 
made  the  latter  feel  happier  than 
he  had  felt  for  many  a  day.  He 
began  to  have  a  decided  notion 
that  he  would  paint  King  Louis's 
book  after  all.  And  just  then,  as 
if  to  settle  the  matter,  he  happened 
to  glance  at  the  corner  of  the  table 
where  Gabriel  had  laid  down  his 
bunch  of  flowers  as  he  came 
in. 

It  chanced  that  some  of  the 
violets  had  fallen  from  the  cluster 
and  dropped  upon  a  broad  ruler  of 
brass  that  lay  beside  the  painting 
materials.  And  even  as  Brother 
Stephen  looked,  it  chanced  also 
that  a  little  white  butterfly  drifted 

into  the  room  through  the  bars  of 

24 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


the  high,  open  window ;  after 
vaguely  fluttering  about  for  a 
while,  at  last,  attracted  by  the 
blossoms,  it  came,  and,  poising 
lightly  over  the  violets  on  the 
ruler,  began  to  sip  the  honey  from 
the  heart  of  one  of  them. 

As  Brother  Stephen's  artistic 
eye  took  in  the  beauty  of  effect 
made  by  the  few  flowers  on  the 
brass  ruler  with  the  butterfly  hov- 
ering over  them,  he,  too,  gave  a 
little  exclamation,  and  his  eyes 
brightened  and  he  smiled  ;  for  he 
had  just  got  a  new  idea  for  an 
illuminated  border. 

"  Yes,"  he  said  to  himself,  "  this 

would    be    different    from    any  I 

have  yet  seen !     I    will  decorate 

King  Louis's  book  with  borders 

of  gold ;  and  on  the  gold   I  will 

25 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  JJ 

paint  the  meadow  wildflowers,  and 
the  bees  and  butterflies,  and  all 
the  little  flying  creatures." 

Now  before  this,  all  the  bor- 
ders of  the  Abbey  books  had 
been  painted,  in  the  usual  manner 
of  the  time,  with  scrolls  and  birds 
and  flowers  more  or  less  conven- 
tionalized; that  is,  the  artists  did 
not  try  to  make  them  look  exactly 
like  the  real  ones,  but  twisted 
them  about  in  all  sorts  of  fan- 
tastic ways.  Sometimes  the  stem 
of  a  flower  would  end  in  the 
curled-up  folds  of  a  winged 
dragon,  or  a  bird  would  have 
strange  blossoms  growing  out  of 
his  beak,  or  perhaps  the  tips  of 
his  wings. 

These  borders  were  indeed  ex- 
quisitely   beautiful,    but     Brother 

26 


J     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

Stephen  was  just  tired  of  it  all, 
and  wanted  to  do  something  quite 
different ;  so  he  was  delighted 
with  his  new  idea  of  painting  the 
field-flowers  exactly  like  nature, 
only  placing  them  on  a  back- 
ground of  gold. 

As  he  pictured  in  his  mind  one 
page  after  another  thus  adorned, 
he  became  more  and  more  inter- 
ested and  impatient  to  begin  at 
once.  He  forgot  all  about  his 
anger  at  the  Abbot ;  he  forgot 
everything  else,  except  that  he 
wanted  to  begin  King  Louis's 
book  as  quickly  as  possible ! 

And  so  he  called  briskly  to 
Gabriel,  who  meantime  had  re- 
seated himself  on  his  bench : 

"  Gabriel,  come  hither !     Canst 

thou  rule  lines  without  blotting  ? 

27 


Jj  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

Canst  thou  make  ink  and  grind 
colours  and  prepare  gold  size  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sir,"  said  Gabriel,  sur- 
prised at  the  monk's  eager  manner, 
"  I  have  worked  at  all  these 
things." 

"  Good  !  "  replied  Brother  Ste- 
phen. "  Here  is  a  piece  of  parch- 
ment thou  canst  cut  and  prepare, 
and  then  rule  it,  thus"  (and  here 
he  showed  him  how  he  wished  it 
done),  "  with  scarlet  ink.  But  do 
not  take  yonder  brass  ruler !  Here 
is  one  of  ivory  thou  canst  use 
instead." 

And  then  as  Gabriel  went  to 

work,  Brother  Stephen,  taking  a 

goose-quill  pen   and  some    black 

ink,  began  skilfully  and  carefully 

to    make  drawings  of  the  violets 

as  they  lay  on  the  ruler,  not  for- 

28 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  jj 

getting  the  white  butterfly  which 
still  hovered  about.  The  harder 
he  worked  the  happier  he  grew; 
hour  after  hour  passed,  till  at  last 
the  dinner  time  came,  and  Gabriel, 
who  was  growing  very  hungry, 
could  hear  the  footsteps  of  the 
brothers,  as  they  marched  into 
the  large  dining-room  where  they 
all  ate  together. 

Brother  Stephen,  however,  was 
so  absorbed  that  he  did  not  notice 
anything ;  till,  by  and  by,  the  door 
opened,  and  in  came  two  monks, 
one  carrying  some  soup  and  bread 
and  a  flagon  of  wine.  As  they 
entered,  Brother  Stephen  turned 
quickly,  and  was  about  to  rise, 
when  all  at  once  he  felt  the  tug 
of  the  chain  still  fastened  about 
the  leg  of  the  table;  at  this  his 

29 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

face  grew  scarlet  with  shame,  and 
he  sank  back  in  his  chair. 

Gabriel  started  with  surprise, 
for  he  had  not  before  seen  the 
chain,  partly  hidden  as  it  was  by 
the  folds  of  the  brother's  robe. 
As  he  looked,  one  of  the  two 
monks  went  to  the  table,  and,  with 
a  key  which  he  carried,  unlocked 
the  chain  so  Brother  Stephen 
might  have  a  half-hour's  liberty 
while  he  ate.  The  monks,  how- 
ever, stayed  with  him  to  keep  an 
eye  on  his  movements  ;  and  mean- 
time they  told  Gabriel  to  go  out 
to  the  Abbey  kitchen  and  find 
something  for  his  own  dinner. 

As  Gabriel  went  out  along  the 
corridor  to  the  kitchen,  his  heart 
swelled  with  pity !  Why  was 
Brother   Stephen    chained  ?     He 

30 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


tried  to  think,  and  remembered 
that  once  before  he  had  seen  one 
of  the  brothers  chained  to  a  table 
in  the  writing-room  because  he  was 
not  diligent  enough  with  his  work, 
—  but  Brother  Stephen !  Was  he 
not  working  so  hard  ?  And  how 
beautiful,  too,  were  his  drawings! 
The  more  Gabriel  thought  of  it 
the  more  indignant  he  grew.  In- 
deed, he  did  not  half-enjoy  the 
bread  and  savoury  soup  made  of 
black  beans,  that  the  cook  dished 
out  for  him;  he  took  his  wooden 
bowl,  and  sitting  on  a  bench,  ate 
absently,  thinking  all  the  while  of 
Brother  Stephen. 

When  he  had  finished  he  went 
back  to  the  chapter-house  and 
found  the  other  monks  gone  and 

Brother   Stephen   again    chained. 

11 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR,  BOOK  g 

Gabriel  felt  much  embarrassed  to 
have  been  obliged  to  see  it ;  and 
when  Brother  Stephen,  pointing 
to  the  chain,  said  bitterly,  "Thou 
seest  they  were  afraid  I  would  run 
away  from  my  work,"  the  lad  was 
so  much  at  a  loss  to  know  what 
to  say,  that  he  very  wisely  said 
nothing. 

Now  Brother  Stephen,  though 
he  had  begun  the  book  as  the 
Abbot  wished,  yet  he  had  by  no 
means  the  meek  and  penitent  spirit 
which  also  the  Abbot  desired  of 
him,  and  which  it  was  proper  for 
a  monk  to  have. 

And  so  if  the  truth  must  be 
told,  each  time  the  other  monks 
came  in  to  chain  him,  he  felt  more 
than  anything  else  like  seizing 
both  of  them,  and  thrusting  them 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


bodily  out  of  the  door,  or  at  least 
trying  to  do  so.  But  then  he  could 
not  forget  the  Abbot's  threat  if  he 
showed  disobedience ;  and  he  had 
been  brought  up  to  dread  the  ban 
of  the  Church  more  than  anything 
else  that  could  possibly  happen 
to  him,  because  he  believed  that 
this  would  make  him  unhappy,  not 
only  in  this  life,  but  in  the  life  to 
come.  And  so  he  smothered  his 
feelings  and  tried  to  bear  the  hu- 
miliation as  patiently  as  he  could. 
Gabriel  could  not  help  but  see, 
however,  that  it  took  him  some 
time  to  regain  the  interest  he  had 
felt  in  his  work,  and  it  was  not  un- 
til the  afternoon  was  half-gone  that 
he  seemed  to  forget  his  troubles 
enough  really  to  have  heart  in  the 
pages  he  was  making. 

33 


3|  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

When  dusk  fell,  Gabriel  picked 
up  and  arranged  his  things  in 
order,  and  bidding  Brother  Ste- 
phen good  night,  trudged  off 
home. 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


CHAPTER   III. 

GABRIEL    INTERVIEWS    THE    ABBOT 

H  E  next  day  of  Gabriel's 
service  passed  off  much 
the  same  as  the  first,  and 
so  it  went  for  almost  a 
but  the  boy  saw  day  by 
day  that  Brother  Stephen's  chain 
became  more  and  more  unbeara- 
ble to  him,  and  that  he  had  long 
fits  of  brooding,  when  he  looked 
so  miserable  and  unhappy  that 
Gabriel's  heart  fairly  ached  for 
him. 

At  last  the  lad,  who  was  a  sym- 
pathetic little  fellow,  felt  that  he 

35 


JP    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

could  stand  it  no  longer,  but  must 
try  and  help  him  in  some  way. 

"If  I  could  only  speak  to  the 
Abbot  himself,"  thought  Gabriel, 
"  surely  he  would  see  that  Brother 
Stephen  is  set  free ! " 

The  Abbot,  however,  was  a 
very  stately  and  dignified  person ; 
and  Gabriel  did  not  quite  see  how 
a  little  peasant  boy  like  himself 
could  find  an  opportunity  to  speak 
to  him,  or  how  he  would  dare  to 
say  anything  even  if  he  had  a 
chance. 

Now  it  happened  the  very 
morning  that  Gabriel  was  think- 
ing about  all  this,  he  was  out  in 
the  Abbey  kitchen  beating  up  the 
white  of  a  nice  fresh  egg  which 
he    had    brought   with   him  from 

home  that  day.      He  had  the  egg 

36 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  j| 

in  an  earthen  bowl,  and  was  work- 
ing away  with  a  curious  wooden 
beater,  for  few  people  had  forks 
in  those  days.  And  as  he  beat 
up  the  white  froth,  the  Abbey 
cooks  also  were  very  busy  making 
pasties,  and  roasting  huge  pieces 
of  meat  before  the  great  open  fire- 
place, and  baking  loaves  of  sweet 
Normandy  bread  for  the  monks' 
dinner. 

But  Gabriel  was  not  helping 
them  ;  no,  he  was  beating  the  egg 
for  Brother  Stephen  to  use  in  put- 
ting on  the  gold  in  the  border  he 
was  painting.  For  the  brothers 
did  not  have  the  imitation  gold 
powders  of  which  we  see  so  much 
to-day  ;  but  instead,  they  used  real 
gold,  which  they  ground  up  very 
fine  in  earthen  mortars,  and  took 

37 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


much  trouble  to  properly  prepare. 
And  when  they  wanted  to  lay  it 
on,  they  commonly  used  the  white 
of  a  fresh  egg  to  fasten  it  to  the 
parchment. 

So  Gabriel  was  working  as  fast 
as  he  could,  for  Brother  Stephen 
was  waiting;  when  all  at  once  he 
happened  to  look  out  the  kitchen 
door,  which  opened  on  a  courtyard 
where  there  was  a  pretty  garden, 
and  he  saw  the  Abbot  walking  up 
and  down  the  gravel  paths,  and 
now  and  then  stopping  to  see  how 
the  tulips  and  daffodils  were  com- 
ing on. 

As  Gabriel  looked,  the  Abbot 

seated  himself  on  a  stone  bench ; 

and  then  the  little  boy,  forgetting 

his  awe  of  him,  and  thinking  only 

of  Brother  Stephen  and  his  chain 

38 


"He  saw  the  Abbot  walking  up  and  down 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


ran  out  as  fast  as  he  could,  still 
holding  his  bowl  in  one  hand  and 
the  wooden  beater  in  the  other. 

As  he  came  up  to  where  the 
Abbot  was  sitting,  he  courtesied 
in  such  haste  that  he  spilled  out 
half  his  tgg  as  he  eagerly  burst 
out: 

"O  reverend  Father!  will  you 
not  command  Brother  Stephen  to 
be  set  free  from  his  chain  ?  " 

The  Abbot  at  first  had  smiled 
at  the  droll  figure  made  by  the 
little  boy,  whom  he  supposed  to 
be  one  of  the  kitchen  scullions, 
but  at  this  speech  he  stiffened  up 
and  looked  very  stern  as  Gabriel 
went  on  breathlessly : 

"  He  is  making  such  a  beautiful 
book,  and  he  works  so  hard ;  but 
the  chain   is   so  dreadful  to  him* 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


and  I  was  sure  that  if  you  knew 
they  had  put  it  on  him,  you  would 
not  allow  it!" 

Here  the  Abbot  began  to  feel 
a  trifle  uncomfortable,  for  he  saw 
that  Gabriel  did  not  know  that  he 
himself  had  ordered  Brother  Ste- 
phen to  wear  the  chain.  But  he 
mentioned  nothing  of  this  as  he 
spoke  to  Gabriel. 

"  Boy,"  he  said,  severely,  "  what 

affair  of  thine  is  this  matter  about 

Brother  Stephen  ?     Doubtless  if 

he  is  chained,  it  is  a  punishment 

he    hath    merited.     'Tis    scarcely 

becoming   in    a   lad  like   thee  to 

question  these  things."    And  then, 

as  he  looked  sharply  at  Gabriel, 

he  added,  "  Did  Brother  Stephen 

send     thee    hither  ?       Who     art 

thou  ?  " 

40 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


At  this  Gabriel  hung  his  head, 
and,  "  Nay,  sir,"  he  answered, 
simply,  "  he  does  not  know,  and 
perhaps  he  will  be  angry  with  me ! 
I  am  his  colour-grinder,  and  I  was 
in  the  kitchen  getting  the  egg  for 
his  gold," —  here  suddenly  Gabriel 
remembered  his  bowl,  and  looking 
down  in  dismay,  "  Oh,  sir,"  he 
exclaimed,  "  I  have  spilled  the  eggy 
and  it  was  fresh-laid  this  morning 
by  my  white  hen!'5  Here  the 
boy  looked  so  honestly  distressed 
that  the  Abbot  could  not  but  be- 
lieve that  he  spoke  the  truth,  and 
so  he  smiled  a  little  as  he  said, 
not  unkindly: 

"  Well,  never  mind  about   thy 

hen,  —  go  on ;    thou  wast   in  the 

kitchen,  and  then  what  ?  " 

"  I    saw    you    in    the    garden," 
41 


3   GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  jj 

answered  Gabriel,  "  and  —  and  — 
I  thought  that  if  you  knew  about 
the  chain,  you  would  not  like  it;" 
(here  the  Abbot  began  to  look 
very  stern  again) ;  "  and,"  Ga- 
briel added,  "  I  could  not  bear  to 
see  Brother  Stephen  so  unhappy. 
I  know  he  is  unhappy,  for  when- 
ever he  notices  the  chain,  he 
frowns  and  his  hand  trembles  so 
he  can  hardly  paint ! " 

"  Ah,"  said  the  Abbot  to  him- 
self, "  if  his  hand  trembles,  that  is 
another  matter."  For  the  Abbot 
knew  perfectly  well  that  in  order 
to  do  successfully  anything  so  del- 
icate as  a  piece  of  illumination, 
one  must  have  a  steady  hand  and 
untroubled  nerves ;  and  he  began 
to  think  that  perhaps  he  had  gone  a 
little  too  far  in  punishing  Brother 

42 


J     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

Stephen.  So  he  thought  a  min- 
ute, and  then  to  Gabriel,  who  was 
still  standing  before  him,  not  quite 
knowing  what  to  do,  he  merely 
said: 

"  Go  back  to  thy  work,  lad,  and 
mind  thy  colours  ;  and,"  he  added 
with  haughty  dignity,  "  I  will  do 
as  I  think  best  about  Brother  Ste- 
phen's chain." 

So  Gabriel  went  back  to  the 
kitchen  feeling  very  uncomforta- 
ble, for  he  was  afraid  he  had  dis- 
pleased the  Abbot,  and  so,  per- 
haps, done  more  harm  than  good 
to  Brother  Stephen.  While  he 
was  quite  sure  he  had  displeased 
Brother  Stephen,  for  he  had  kept 
him  waiting  a  long  while,  and 
worse  still,  had  spilled  the  best 
egg    there    was    in    the    kitchen! 

43  - 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

However,  the  lad  begged  one  of 
the  cooks  to  let  him  have  another 
eggy  and,  whisking  it  up  as  quickly 
as  he  could,  made  haste  to  carry  it 
to  the  chapter-house. 

As  he  pushed  open  the  door, 
Brother  Stephen  said,  sharply, 
"  How  now !  I  thought  they  had 
chained  thee  to  one  of  the  tables 
of  the  kitchen  ! " 

"  I  am  so  sorry,"  said  Gabriel, 
his  face  very  red,  —  "  but  —  I  — 
I  spilled  the  first  egg  and  had  to 
make  ready  another." 

He  hoped  Brother  Stephen 
would  not  ask  him  how  he  hap- 
pened to  spill  it ;  for  by  this  time 
he  began  to  realize  that  the  high- 
spirited  monk  probably  had  rea- 
sons of  his  own  for  submitting  to 
the  punishment  of  the  chain,  and 

44 


3   GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

that  very  likely  he  would  be  dis- 
pleased if  he  knew  that  his  little 
colour -grinder  had  asked  the 
Abbot  to  free  him.  So  Gabriel 
felt  much  relieved  when,  without 
further  questions,  Brother  Stephen 
went  on  with  his  work,  in  which 
for  the  moment  he  was  greatly 
absorbed. 

And  thus  the  day  went  quietly 
on,  till  early  in  the  afternoon; 
when,  to  the  great  surprise  of 
both  of  them,  the  door  slowly 
opened,  and  in  walked  the  Abbot 
himself. 

The  Abbot  was  haughty,  as 
usual,  and,  as  Brother  Stephen 
saw  him  come  in,  he  raised  his 
head  with  an  involuntary  look  of 
pride  and  resentment ;  but  neither 
spoke  as  the  Abbot  stepped  over 

45 


JB     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK    £ 

to  the  table,  and  examined  the 
page  on  which  the  monk  was 
working. 

This  particular  page  happened 
to  be  ornamented  with  a  wide 
border  of  purple  flag -flowers, 
copied  from  some  Gabriel  had 
gathered  the  day  before  in  a 
swampy  corner  of  one  of  the  way- 
side meadows.  Their  fresh  green 
leaves  and  rich  purple  petals  shone 
with  royal  effect  against  the  back- 
ground of  gold ;  while  hovering 
over  them,  and  clinging  to  their 
stems,  were  painted  honey-bees, 
with  gauzy  wings,  and  soft,  furry- 
looking  bodies  of  black  and  gold. 

As  the  Abbot  saw  how  beauti- 
ful it  all  was,  and  how  different 
from  any  other  of  the  Abbey  illu- 
minations,  he  smiled   to   himself 

46 


J    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

with  pleasure.  For  the  Abbot, 
though  he  never  said  a  great  deal, 
yet  very  well  knew  a  good  piece 
of  artistic  work  when  he  saw  it 
Instead  of  merely  smiling  to  him- 
self, however,  it  would  have  made 
Brother  Stephen  much  happier  if 
he  had  taken  the  trouble  to  say 
aloud  some  of  the  nice  things  he 
was  thinking  about  the  work 

For  Brother  Stephen  felt  very 
bitter  as  he  thought  over  all  he 
had  been  made  to  bear ;  and  even 
as  the  Abbot  looked,  he  saw,  sure 
enough,  that  his  hand  trembled 
as  Gabriel  had  said ;  for  the  poor 
monk  had  hard  work  to  control 
his  feelings. 

Now  the  Abbot  really  did  not 
mean  to  be  unkind.  It  was  only 
that  he  did  not  quite  know  how 


g|  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  JJ 

to  unbend ;  and   perhaps    feeling 
this,  he  soon  went  out. 

Gabriel,  who  had  been  very 
much  afraid  he  might  say  some- 
thing to  him  about  their  conver- 
sation of  the  morning,  felt  greatly 
relieved  when  the  door  closed  be- 
hind him ;  and  the  rest  of  the 
afternoon  he  and  Brother  Stephen 
worked  on  in  silence. 


4M 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE    HOUR     BOOK 

UT  the  next  morning 
when  Gabriel  reached  the 
Abbey,  to  his  great  joy 
he  found  the  chain  gone 
(for  the  Abbot  had  so  ordered 
after  his  visit  to  the  chapter-house), 
and  Brother  Stephen  already  hard 
at  work,  and  happy  as  a  bird. 
For  like  many  other  artist  souls, 
when  things  went  wrong,  Brother 
Stephen  suffered  dreadful  unhap- 
piness;  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
when  pleased,  he  was  full  of 
boundless  delight;  and  so,  being 

49 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


relieved  from  the  chain,  he  was  in 
one  of  his  most  joyous  moods. 

He  smiled  brightly  as  Gabriel 
entered ;  and  the  April  sunlight 
streaming  in  through  the  high 
narrow  windows  sparkled  so  ra- 
diantly, and  so  filled  them  with 
the  life  and  energy  and  gladness 
of  the  spring-time,  that  each  of 
them  felt  as  though  he  could  do 
no  end  of  work,  and  that  King 
Louis's  book  should  be  one  of 
the  most  beautiful  things  in  all 
the  world  ! 

And  that  morning  was  but  the 
beginning  of  a  long  series  of 
happy  days  that  Brother  Stephen 
and  Gabriel  were  to  spend  to- 
gether. At  first  the  monk  knew 
nothing  of  how  it  happened  that 
he  was  freed    from   the    humilia- 

50 


S  GABRBEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  jj 

tion  of  the  chain ;  but  one  day  he 
heard  about  Gabriels  talk  with 
the  Abbot  from  one  of  the  brother- 
hood who  had  chanced  to  be  in 
the  garden  that  morning,  and 
had  overheard  them. 

At  first  Brother  Stephen  was 
rather  displeased ;  for  he  did  not 
like  it  that  the  little  boy  had 
begged  of  the  Abbot  something 
which  he  himself  was  too  proud 
to  ask.  But  when  he  thought  it 
over,  and  reflected  that  it  was  out 
of  sheer  kindness  that  Gabriel 
had  made  the  request,  his  heart 
strangely  warmed  toward  the  lad. 
Indeed,  through  all  his  life  in  the 
Abbey,  no  one  had  ever  really 
cared  whether  he  was  happy  or 
unhappy ;  and  so  poor  Brother 
Stephen  had    had    no  idea   how 

51 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

very  pleasant  it  would  be  to  have 
even  a  little  peasant  boy  take  an 
interest  in  him.  And  as  day 
after  day  went  by,  he  began  to 
love  Gabriel,  as  he  had  never 
before  loved  any  one. 

Yes,  those  were  very  happy 
days  for  both  of  them,  and  very 
busy  ones,  too.  Every  morning 
Gabriel  would  come  to  the  Abbey 
with  his  hands  filled  with  the 
prettiest  wild  flowers  he  could 
find  on  the  way ;  and  from  these 
Brother  Stephen  would  select  the 
ones  that  pleased  him  best  to 
paint.  Sometimes  it  would  be 
the  sweet  wild  hyacinths  of  pale 
blue,  sometimes  the  yellow  marsh- 
marigolds,  and  again  the  little 
deep  pink  field-roses,  or  some 
other  of   the  innumerable  lovely 

$2 


H     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

blossoms  that  every  season 
brought.  And  with  them  all,  as 
he  had  said,  he  put  in  the  small 
flying  creatures;  butterflies  and 
bees,  scarlet  ladybugs  and  pale 
green  beetles,  whose  wings  looked 
like  scraps  of  rainbows ;  and 
sometimes,  in  his  zeal,  he  even 
painted  the  little  snails  with  their 
curled-up  shells,  and  the  fuzzy 
caterpillars  that  happened  to  come 
in  on  Gabriel's  bouquets,  and  you 
really  would  never  believe  how 
very  handsome  even  these  looked 
in  the  gold  borders,  when  Brother 
Stephen  got  through  with  them. 

And  so,  day  by  day,  the  book 
grew  in  perfect  beauty.  And  as 
Brother  Stephen  worked,  there 
was  much  for  Gabriel  to  do  also.. 
For  in  those  days    artists  could 

53 


9  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  * 

not  buy  their  ink  and  paints  all 
ready  for  use  as  they  do  to-day, 
but  were  obliged  to  prepare  by 
hand  almost  all  their  materials; 
and  a  little  assistant  such  as  Ga- 
briel had  to  keep  his  hands  busy, 
and  his  eyes  open,  too. 

For  instance,  the  matter  of  the 
ink  alone,  Gabriel  had  to  have  on 
his  mind  for  weeks ;  for  one  could 
not  then  buy  it  ready  made,  in  a 
bottle,  as  we  do  now  without  the 
least  trouble,  but  the  monks  or 
their  colour-grinders  had  to  make 
it  themselves. 

And  this  is  the  way  Gabriel 
had  been  taught  to  do  it :  morn- 
ing after  morning  of  those  early 
spring  days,  as  he  trudged  along 
on  his  way  to  the  Abbey,  he  kept 
sharp  watch  on  the   young  haw- 

54 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  E 

thorn-trees  by  the  roadside;  and 
when  their  first  buds  showed,  and 
while  they  were  still  tiny,  he  gath- 
ered armfuls  of  the  boughs,  and 
carried  them  to  the  Abbey,  where 
he  spread  them  out  in  a  sunny 
corner  of  the  courtyard  to  stay 
until  quite  dry.  Then  he  had  to 
put  them  in  a  stone  mortar  and 
pound  off  all  the  bark;  and  this 
he  put  to  steep  in  great  earthen 
jars  of  water,  until  the  water 
might  draw  all  the  sap  from  out 
the  bark.  All  this  took  several 
weeks  to  do. 

And  then  Gabriel  spent  2 
number  of  busy  days  in  the  great 
kitchen.  There  he  had  a  large 
saucepan,  and  in  it  he  placed,  a 
little  at  a  time,  the  water  in  which 
the  bark  was  steeping;  and  then 

55 


9  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  R 

raking  out  some  coals  from  the 
blazing  fire  of  logs,  he  set  his 
saucepan  over  them,  and  watched 
the  barky  water  until  it  had  boiled 
down  very  thick,  much  as  one 
boils  down  syrup  for  preserves. 

Then  he  dipped  out  the  thick 
liquid  into  little  bags  of  parch- 
ment, which  he  had  spent  days 
stitching  up  very  tightly,  so  that 
nothing  could  leak  out.  After 
the  little  bags  were  filled,  he  hung 
them  out-of-doors  in  the  bright 
sunlight;  and  as  the  days  grew 
warmer  and  warmer,  the  sun  soon 
dried  their  contents,  so  that  if 
one  of  the  little  bags  were  opened 
it  would  be  found  filled  with  a 
dark  powder. 

And    then,    last    of    all,    when 

Brother    Stephen    wished    some 

56 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


* 


fresh  ink  for  his  writing,  or  for 
the  delicate  lines  about  his  initial 
letters  or  borders,  Gabriel  would 
take  a  little  of  the  dry  powder 
from  one  of  the  bags,  and,  putting 
it  in  a  small  saucepan  over  the 
fire,  would  melt  it  with  a  little 
wine.  And  so  at  last  it  would 
be  ready  for  use ;  a  fine,  beauti- 
ful black  ink  that  hundreds  of 
years  have  found  hard  work  to 
fade. 

Then  there  was  the  gold  to 
grind  and  prepare ;  that  was  the 
hardest  of  all,  and  fairly  made 
his  arms  ache.  Many  of  the 
paints,  too,  had  to  be  worked  over 
very  carefully ;  and  the  blue  espe- 
cially, and  other  brilliant  colours 
made  from  vegetable  dyes,  must 
be  kept    in    a  very  curious  way. 

57  ' 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  K 

Brother  Stephen  would  prepare 
the  dyes,  as  he  preferred  to  do 
this  himself;  and  then  Gabriel 
would  take  little  pieces  of  linen 
cloth  and  dip  a  few  in  each  of 
the  colours  until  the  linen  would 
be  soaked ;  and  afterward,  when 
they  had  dried  in  the  sun,  he 
would  arrange  these  bits  in  a  little 
booklet  of  cotton  paper,  which 
every  night  Brother  Stephen,  as 
was  the  custom  with  many  of  the 
monks,  put  under  his  pillow  so 
that  it  might  keep  very  dry  and 
warm ;  for  this  preserved  the 
colours  in  all  their  brightness. 
And  then  when  he  wanted  to 
use  some  of  them,  he  would  tell 
Gabriel  to  cut  off  a  bit  of  the 
linen     of     whatever     colour     he 

wished,  and  soak  it  in  water,  and 

58 


"  Dreaming  of  all  the  beautiful  things  he  meant  to  paint  " 


j|  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  K 

in  this  way  he  would  get  a  fine 
liquid  paint. 

For  holding  this  paint,  as 
dishes  were  none  too  plenty  in 
those  days,  mussel  shells  were 
generally  used;  and  one  of  Ga- 
briel's tasks  was  to  gather  num- 
bers of  these  from  the  banks  of 
the  little  river  that  ran  through 
one  of  the  Abbey  meadows.  That 
was  very  pleasant  work,  though, 
and  sometimes,  late  in  the  after- 
noons of  those  lovely  summer 
days,  Brother  Stephen  and  Ga- 
briel would  walk  out  together  to 
the  edge  of  this  little  river;  the 
monk  to  sit  on  the  grassy  bank 
dreaming  of  all  the  beautiful 
things  he  meant  to  paint,  while 
Gabriel  hunted  for  the  pretty 
purple  shells. 

59 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


And  oftentimes  the  lad  would 
bring  along  a  fishing-pole  and 
try  his  luck  at  catching  an  eel ;  for 
even  this,  too,  had  to  do  with  the 
making  of  the  book.  For  Brother 
Stephen  in  putting  on  the  gold 
of  his  borders,  while  he  generally 
used  white  of  egg,  yet  for  certain 
parts  preferred  a  glue  made  from 
the  skin  of  an  eel ;  and  this  Ga- 
briel could  make  very  finely. 

So  you  see  there  were  a  great 
many  things  for  a  little  colour- 
grinder  to  do ;  yet  Gabriel  was 
very  industrious,  and  it  often  hap- 
pened that  he  would  finish  his 
tasks  for  the  day,  and  still  have 
several  hours  to  himself.  And 
this  was  the  best  of  all ;  for  at 
such  times  Brother  Stephen,  who 

was   getting    along    finely,  would 

60 


3     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

take  great  pleasure  in  teaching 
him  to  illuminate.  He  would  let 
the  boy  take  a  piece  of  parchment, 
and  then  giving  him  beautiful 
letters  and  bits  of  borders,  would 
show  him  how  to  copy  them. 
Indeed,  he  took  so  much  pains  in 
his  teaching,  that  very  soon  Ga- 
briel, who  loved  the  work,  and 
who  had  a  real  talent  for  it,  be- 
gan to  be  quite  skilful,  and  to 
make  very  good  designs  of  his 
own. 

Whenever  he  did  anything 
especially  nice,  Brother  Stephen 
would  seem  almost  as  much 
pleased  as  if  Gabriel  were  his 
own  boy ;  and  hugging  him  affec- 
tionately, he  would  exclaim : 

"Ah,  little  one,  thou  hast  in- 
deed the  artist  soul !     And,  please 

61 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  E 

God,  I  will  train  thy  hand  so  that 
when  thou  art  a  man  it  shall 
never  know  the  hard  toil  of  the 
peasant.  Thy  pen  and  brush 
shall  earn  a  livelihood  for  thee ! " 
And  then  he  would  take  more 
pains  than  ever  to  teach  Gabriel 
all  the  best  knowledge  of  his  art. 
Nor  did  Brother  Stephen  con- 
tent himself  with  teaching  the  boy 
only  to  paint ;  but  in  his  love  for 
him,  he  desired  to  do  still  more. 
He  had  no  wealth  some  day  to 
bestow  upon  him,  but  he  had 
something  that  was  a  very  great 
deal  better;  for  Brother  Stephen, 
like  many  of  the  monks  of  the 
time,  had  a  good  education ;  and 
this  he  determined  to  share  with 
Gabriel. 

He  arranged  to  have  him  stay 
62 


9  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

at  the  Abbey  for  his  supper  as 
often  as  he  could  be  spared  from 
home;  and  hour  after  hour  of  the 
long  summer  evenings  he  spent 
teaching  the  lad  to  read  and  write, 
which  was  really  quite  a  distinc- 
tion; for  it  was  an  accomplish- 
ment that  none  of  the  peasants, 
and  very  few  of  the  lords  and 
ladies  of  that  time  possessed.  Ga- 
briel was  quick  and  eager  to  learn, 
and  Brother  Stephen  gradually 
added  other  things  to  his  list  of 
studies,  and  both  of  them  took 
the  greatest  pleasure  in  the  hours 
thus  passed  together. 

Sometimes  they  would  go  out 
into  the  garden,  and,  sitting  on 
one  of  the  quaint  stone  benches, 
Brother  Stephen  would  point  out 
to  Gabriel  the  different  stars,  or 

63 


3   GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

tell  him  about  the  fragrant  grow- 
ing plants  around  them  ;  or,  per- 
haps, repeat  to  him  some  dreamy- 
legend  of  old,  old  Normandy. 

And  then,  by  and  by,  Gabriel 
would  go  home  through  the  per- 
fumed dark,  feeling  vaguely  happy ; 
for  all  the  while,  through  those 
pleasant  evenings  with  Brother 
Stephen,  his  mind  and  heart  were 
opening  brightly  as  the  yellow 
primroses,  that  blossomed  by  moon- 
light over  all  the  Abbey  meadows. 


&4 


CHAPTER   V. 

THE     COUNT'S     TAX 

ND  in  this  happy  manner 
the  spring  and  summer 
wore  away  and  the  au- 
tumn came.  Brother 
Stephen  felt  very  cheerful,  for  the 
beautiful  book  grew  more  beauti- 
ful week  by  week;  and  he  was 
very  proud  and  happy,  because  he 
knew  it  was  the  loveliest  thing 
he  had  ever  made. 

Indeed,  he  himself  was  so  cheer- 
ful, that  as  the  autumn  days,  one 
after  another,  melted  away,  it  was 
some  little  time  before  he  noticed 

65 


JS     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     jj 

that  Gabriel  was  losing  his  mer- 
riness,  and  that  he  had  begun  to 
look  sad  and  distressed.  And 
finally,  one  morning,  he  came  look- 
ing so  very  unhappy,  that  Brother 
Stephen  asked,  with  much  con- 
cern : 

"  Why,  lad,  whither  have  all 
thy  gay  spirits  taken  flight  ?  Art 
thou  ill  ?  " 

"  Nay,  sir,"  answered  Gabriel, 
sadly ;  "  but  oh,  Brother  Stephen, 
we  are  in  so  much  trouble  at 
home ! " 

At  this  the  monk  at  once  began 
to  question  him,  and  learned  that 
Gabriel's  family  were  indeed  in 
great  misfortune. 

And  this  is  how  it  came  about : 
in  those  days  the  peasant  folk 
had    a    very    hard     time    indeed. 

66 


H    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     K 

All  of  the  land  through  the  coun- 
try was  owned  by  the  great  nobles ; 
and  the  poor  peasants,  who  lived 
on  the  little  farms  into  which  the 
land  was  divided,  had  few  rights. 
They  could  not  even  move  to 
another  place  if  they  so  wished, 
but  were  obliged  to  spend  all 
their  lives  under  the  control  of 
whatever  nobleman  happened  to 
own  the  estate  on  which  they 
were  born. 

They  lived  in  little  thatched 
cottages,  and  cultivated  their  bits 
of  land ;  and  as  rent  for  this,  each 
peasant  was  obliged  to  help  sup- 
port the  great  lord  who  owned 
everything,  and  who  always  lived 
in  a  strong  castle,  with  armed 
men  under  his  command. 

The    peasants     had    to    raise 

67 


JJ  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  K 

wheat  and  vegetables  and  sheep 
and  cows,  so  that  the  people  of 
the  castles  might  eat  nice,  white 
bread,  and  nut  cookies  and  roast 
meat ;  though  the  poor  peasants 
themselves  had  to  be  content,  day 
after  day,  with  little  more  than 
hard,  black  bread,  and  perhaps  a 
single  bowl  of  cabbage  or  potato 
soup,  from  which  the  whole  family 
would  dip  with  their  wooden 
spoons. 

Then,  too,  the  peasants  often- 
times had  to  pay  taxes  when  their 
noble  lord  wished  to  raise  money, 
and  even  to  follow  him  to  war  if 
he  so  commanded,  though  this 
did  not  often  happen. 

And  now  we  come  to  the  rea- 
son for  Gabriel's  troubles.  It 
seems  that  the   Count   Pierre  de 

68 


J      GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK    g 

Bouchage,  to  whose  estate  Ga- 
briel's family  belonged,  had  got 
into  a  quarrel  with  a  certain  baron 
who  lived  near  the  town  of  Ev- 
reux,  and  Count  Pierre  was  de- 
termined to  take  his  followers 
and  attack  the  barons  castle ;  for 
these  private  wars  were  very  com- 
mon in  those  days. 

But  Count  Pierre  needed  money 
to  carry  on  his  little  war,  and  so 
had  laid  a  very  heavy  tax  on  the 
peasants  of  his  estate ;  and  Ga- 
briel's father  had  been  unable  to 
raise  the  sum  of  money  demanded. 
For  besides  Gabriel,  there  were 
several  little  brothers  and  sisters 
in  the  family,  Jean  and  M argot 
and  little  Guillaume,  who  must  be 
clothed  and  fed ;  and  though  the 

father  was  honest  and  hard-work- 

69 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


ing,  yet  the  land  of  their  little 
farm  was  poor,  and  it  was  all  the 
family  could  do  to  find  themselves 
enough  on  which  to  live. 

When  peasant  Viaud  had 
begged  Count  Pierre  to  release 
him  from  the  tax,  the  count,  who 
was  hard  and  unsympathetic,  had 
become  angry,  and  given  orders 
that  the  greater  part  of  their  little 
farm  should  be  taken  from  them, 
and  he  had  seized  also  their  little 
flock  of  sheep.  This  was  a  griev- 
ous loss,  for  out  of  the  wool  that 
grew  on  the  sheeps'  backs,  Ga- 
briel's mother  every  winter  made 
the  warm,  homespun  clothes  for 
all  the   family. 

Indeed,   Count   Pierre  had  no 

real  right  to  do  all  this ;  but  in 

those   times,  when    a  noble    lord 

70 


"I  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

chose  to  be  cruel  and  unjust,  the 
poor  peasants  had  no  way  to  help 
matters. 

And  this  was  not  all  of  Ga- 
briel's woes  ;  for  only  a  few  days 
after  he  had  told  these  things  to 
Brother  Stephen,  when  he  went 
home  at  night,  he  found  his 
mother  crying  bitterly,  and  learned 
that  Count  Pierre,  who  was  hav- 
ing some  trouble  in  raising  his 
money,  and  so  had  become  more 
merciless  than  ever,  had  that  day 
imprisoned  his  father  at  the  castle, 
and  refused  to  release  him  unless 
some  of  the  tax  were  paid. 

This  was  the  hardest  blow  of 
all ;  and  though  the  other  children 
were  too  young  to  understand  all 
that  had  befallen  them,  poor  Ga- 
briel and  his  mother  were  so  dis- 

71 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

tressed  that  neither  slept  that 
night ;  and  the  next  morning  when 
the  little  boy  arose,  tired  out  in- 
stead of  rested  by  the  long  night, 
he  had  scarcely  the  heart  to  go 
away  to  the  Abbey,  and  leave 
things  so  miserable  at  home. 
But  his  mother  thought  it  best  for 
him  to  keep  on  with  his  work 
with  Brother  Stephen,  because  of 
the  little  sum  he  earned  ;  and  then, 
too,  he  felt  that  he  must  do  his 
part  to  help  until  King  Louis's 
book  was  finished.  After  that, 
he  did  not  know  what  he  could 
do!  He  did  not  know  how  he 
could  best  try  to  take  his  father's 
place  and  help  the  family ;  for, 
after  all,  he  knew  he  was  only  a 
little  boy,  and  so  things    seemed 

very  hopeless ! 

72 


Jj  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  fj 

Indeed  the  grief  and  poverty 
that  had  come  upon  them  at  home 
made  Gabriel  so  sad  that  Brother 
Stephen  was  quite  heart-broken, 
too,  for  he  deeply  loved  the  lad. 
As  he  worked,  he  kept  trying  all 
the  while  to  think  of  some  way 
to  help  them ;  but  as  the  monk 
had  passed  all  his  life  within 
the  walls  of  the  Abbey,  he  knew 
but  little  of  the  ways  of  the  out- 
side world ;  and  he  had  no  money 
of  his  own,  or  he  would  gladly 
have  paid  the  tax  himself. 


n 


-n'„tn   'fr^.lMW-  iV 


GASRJEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


CHAPTER   VI. 

GABRIEL'S    PRAYER 

EANTIME, though  they 
worked  quietly,  they  were 
both  very  industrious ; 
and  at  last  one  day,  late 
in  October,  when  the  first  snow 
was  beginning  to  fall,  Brother 
Stephen  finished  the  last  page  of 
the  beautiful  book.  He  gave  a 
sigh  as  he  laid  down  his  paint- 
brush ;  not  because  he  was  tired, 
but  because  in  his  heart  he  was 
really  sorry  to  finish  his  work,  for 
he  knew  that  then  it  would  soon 
be  taken  away,  and  he  hated  to 
part  with  it. 

74 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR. 


As  he  and  Gabriel  laid  all  the 
pages  together  in  the  order  in 
which  they  were  to  go,  brother 
Stephen's  heart  swelled  with  pride, 
and  Gabriel  thought  he  had  never 
seen  anything  half  so  lovely ! 

The  text  was  written  in  beauti- 
ful letters  of  the  lustrous  black  ink 
which  Gabriel  had  made ;  and  at 
the  beginnings  of  new  chapters, 
wonderful  initial  letters  glittered 
in  gold  and  colours  till  they 
looked  like  little  mosaics  of  pre- 
cious stones. 

Here  and  there  through  the 
text  were  scattered  exquisite  min- 
iature pictures  of  saints  and 
angels ;  while  as  for  the  borders 
that  enclosed  every  page,  they 
wreathed  around  the  written 
words    such    lovely   garlands    of 

75  ' 


Jl  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  R 

painted  blossoms,  that  to  Gabriel 
the  whole  book  seemed  a  marvel- 
lous bouquet  of  all  the  sweet 
flowers  he  had  daily  gathered 
from  the  Norman  fields,  and  that 
Brother  Stephen,  by  the  magic  of 
his  art,  had  made  immortal. 

Indeed  the  little  boy  fairly 
blinked  as  he  looked  at  the  spark- 
ling beauty  of  those  pages  where 
the  blossoms  were  to  live  on, 
through  the  centuries,  bright  and 
beautiful  and  unharmed  by  wind 
or  rain  or  the  driving  snow,  that 
even  then  was  covering  up  all  the 
bare  frost-smitten  meadows  with- 
out. 

And  so  Gabriel  turned  over 
page  after  page  shining  with  gold 
and  purple  and  rose-colour,  till 
he  came  to  the  very  last  of  the 

76 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


text ;  and  then  he  saw  that  there 
was  yet  one  page  more,  and  on 
turning  over  this  he  read  these 
words : 

"  I,  Brother  Stephen,  of  the 
Abbey  of  St.  Martin-de-Bou- 
chage,  made  this  book  ;  and  for 
every  initial  letter  and  picture  and 
border  of  flowers  that  I  have 
herein  wrought,  I  pray  the  Lord 
God  to  have  compassion  upon 
some  one  of  my  grievous  sins ! " 

This  was  written  in  beautifully, 
and  all  around  it  was  painted  a 
graceful  border  like  braided  rib- 
bons of  blue. 

Now  in  Brother  Stephen's  time, 
when  any  one  finished  an  espe- 
cially beautiful  illumination  of 
any  part  of  the  Bible,  it  was 
quite  customary  for  the  artist  to 

77 


add,  at  the  end,  a  little  prayer. 
Indeed,  no  one  can  make  a  really 
beautiful  thing  without  loving  the 
work;  and  those  old-time  artist- 
monks  took  such  delight  in  the 
flowery  pages  they  painted,  that 
they  felt  sure  the  dear  Lord  him- 
self could  not  help  but  be  pleased 
to  have  his  words  made  so  beau- 
tiful, and  that  he  would  so  grant 
the  little  prayer  at  the  end  of  the 
book,  because  of  the  loving  labour 
that  had  gone  before. 

As  Gabriel  again  read  over 
Brother  Stephen's  last  page,  it 
set  him  to  thinking ;  and  a  little 
later,  as  he  walked  home  in  the 
frosty  dusk,  he  thought  of  it  again. 

It  was  true,  he  said  to  himself, 
that  all  the  beautiful  written  and 
painted  work    on    King    Louis's 

78 


a     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

book  had  been  done  by  Brother 
Stephen's  hands,  —  and  yet,  — 
and  yet,  — had  not  he,  too,  helped  ? 
Had  he  not  gathered  the  thorny 
hawthorn,  and  pricked  his  fin- 
gers, and  spent  days  and  days 
making  the  ink?  Had  he  not, 
week  after  week,  ground  the  col- 
ours and  the  gold  till  his  arms 
ached,  and  his  hands  were  blis- 
tered ?  Had  he  not  made  the 
glue,  and  prepared  the  parchment, 
and  ruled  the  lines  (and  one  had 
to  be  so  careful  not  to  blot  them  !), 
and  brought  all  the  flowers  for 
the    borders  ? 

Surely,  he  thought,  though  he 
had  not  painted  any  of  its  lovely 
pages,  yet  he  had  done  his  little 
part  to  help  make  the  book,  and 
so,   perhaps  —  perhaps  —  might 

79 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


not  the  Lord  God  feel  kindly 
toward  him,  too,  and  be  willing  to 
grant  a  little  prayer  to  him  also  ? 

Now  of  course  Gabriel  could 
have  prayed  any  time  and  any- 
where, and  simply  asked  for  what 
he  wanted.  But  he  had  a  strong 
feeling  that  God  would  be  much 
more  apt  to  notice  it,  if  the 
prayer  were  beautifully  written 
out,  like  Brother  Stephen's,  and 
placed  in  the  book  itself,  on  the 
making  of  which  he  had  worked 
so  long  and  so  hard. 

Gabriel  was  very  pleased  with 

his    idea,    and     by    the    time    he 

reached    home,   he   had    planned 

out  just  what  he  wanted  to  say. 

He  ate  his  supper  of  hard  black 

bread    very    happily,    and    when, 

soon  after,  he  crept  into  bed  and 

80 


%     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  E 

pulled  up  his  cover  of  ragged 
sheepskin,  he  went  to  sleep  with 
his  head  so  full  of  the  work  of 
the  past  few  months,  that  he 
dreamed  that  the  whole  world  was 
full  of  painted  books  and  angels 
with  rose-coloured  wings ;  that  all 
the  meadows  of  Normandy  were 
covered  with  gold,  and  the  flow- 
ers fastened  on  with  white  of  egg 
and  eel-skins;  and  then,  just  as 
he  was  getting  out  his  ruler  to 
rule  lines  over  the  blue  sky,  he 
rubbed  his  eyes  and  woke  up; 
and,  finding  it  was  morning,  he 
jumped  out  of  bed,  and  hastened 
to  make  himself  ready  for  his 
day's  work 

When  he  reached  the  Abbey, 
Brother  Stephen  was  busy  bind- 
ing together  the    finished    leaves 

81 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  E 

of  the  book;  for  the  monks  had 
to  do  not  only  the  painting,  but 
also  the  putting  together  of  their 
books  themselves. 

After  Gabriel  had  waited  on 
Brother  Stephen  for  awhile,  the 
latter  told  him  he  could  have 
some  time  to  himself,  and  so  he 
hurried  to  get  out  the  little  jars 
of  scarlet  and  blue  and  black  ink, 
and  the  bits  of  parchment  that 
Brother  Stephen  had  given  him. 
He  looked  over  the  parchment 
carefully,  and  at  last  found  one 
piece  from  which  he  could  cut  a 
page  that  was  almost  as  large  as 
the  pages  of  the  book.  It  was  an 
old  piece,  and  had  some  writing 
on  one  side,  but  he  knew  how  to 
scrape  it  off  clean ;  and  then  tak- 
ing some    of    the   scarlet  ink,  he 

82 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

ruled  some  lines  in  the  centre  of 
the  page,  and  between  these,  in 
the  nicest  black  letters  he  knew 
how  to  make,  he  wrote  his  little 
prayer.  And  this  is  the  way  it 
read  : 

"  I,  Gabriel  Viaud,  am  Brother 
Stephen's  colour-grinder ;  and  I 
have  made  the  ink  for  this  book, 
and  the  glue,  and  caught  the  eels, 
and  ground  the  gold  and  colours, 
and  ruled  the  lines  and  gathered 
the  flowers  for  the  borders,  and 
so  I  pray  the  Lord  God  will  be 
kind  and  let  my  father  out  of 
prison  in  Count  Pierre's  castle, 
and  tell  Count  Pierre  to  give 
us  back  our  meadow  and  sheep, 
for  we  cannot  pay  the  tax,  and 
mother  says  we  will  starve." 

Now  in  the  little  prayers  that 
83 


H  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

the  monks  added  at  the  end  of  a 
book,  it  was  the  custom  to  ask 
only  that  their  sins  might  be  for- 
given. But  Gabriel,  though  he 
knew  he  had  plenty  of  sins,  —  for 
so  the  parish  priest  of  St.  Martin's 
village  told  all  the  peasant  folk 
every  Sunday,  —  yet  somehow 
could  not  feel  nearly  so  anxious 
to  have  them  forgiven,  as  he  was 
to  have  his  father  freed  from 
prison  in  the  castle,  and  their 
little  farm  and  flock  restored  to 
them ;  and  so  he  had  decided  to 
word  his  prayer  the  way  he  did. 

It  took  him  some  time  to  write 
it  out,  for  he  took  great  pains  to 
shape  every  letter  as  perfectly  as 
possible.  Nor  did  he  forget  that 
Brother  Stephen  had  taught  him 

always    to  make    the    word   God 

84 


J    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

more  beautiful  than  the  others ; 
so  he  wrote  that  in  scarlet  ink, 
and  edged  it  with  scallops  and 
loops  and  little  dots  of  blue ;  and 
then  all  around  the  whole  prayer 
he  made  graceful  flourishes  of 
the  coloured  inks.  He  very- 
much  wished  for  a  bit  of  gold 
with  which  to  enrich  his  work, 
but  gold  was  too  precious  for 
little  boys  to  practise  with,  and 
so  Brother  Stephen  had  not  given 
him  any  for  his  own.  Neverthe- 
less, when  the  page  was  finished, 
the  artistic  effect  was  very  pleas- 
ing, and  it  really  was  a  remarka- 
bly clever  piece  of  work  for  a 
little  boy  to  have  made. 

He  did  not  tell  Brother  Ste- 
phen what  he  was  doing,  for  he 
was  afraid  that  perhaps  he  might 

85 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


not  quite  approve  of  his  plan. 
Not  that  Gabriel  wished  for  a 
moment  to  do  anything  that 
Brother  Stephen  would  not  like 
him  to  do,  but  only  that  he  thought 
their  affairs  at  home  so  desperate 
that  he  could  not  afford  to  risk 
losing  this  means  of  help;  —  and 
then,  too,  he  felt  that  the  prayer 
was  his  own  little  secret,  and  he 
did  not  want  to  tell  any  one  about 
it  anyway. 

And  so  he  was  greatly  relieved 
that  Brother  Stephen,  who  was 
very  much  absorbed  in  his  own 
work,  did  not  ask  him  any  ques- 
tions. The  monk  was  always 
very  kind  about  helping  him  in 
every  way  possible,  but  never  in- 
sisted on  Gabriel's  showing  him 
everything,    wisely   thinking    that 

86 


a     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

many  times  it  was  best  to  let  the 
boy  work  out  his  own  ideas.  So 
Gabriel  said  nothing  about  his 
page,  but  put  it  carefully  away, 
until  he  could  find  some  oppor- 
tunity to  place  it  in  the  book 
itself. 

Meantime  Brother  Stephen 
worked  industriously,  and  in  a 
few  days  more  he  had  quite  fin- 
ished the  book.  He  had  strongly 
bound  all  his  painted  pages  to- 
gether, and  put  on  a  cover  of 
violet  velvet,  which  the  nuns  of  a 
near-by  convent  had  exquisitely 
embroidered  in  pearls  and  gold. 
And,  last  of  all,  the  cover  was 
fastened  with  clasps  of  wrought 
gold,  set  with  amethysts.  Alto- 
gether it  was  a  royal  gift,  and  one 
worthy  of  any  queen.      Even  the 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

Abbot,  cold  and  stately  though 
he  usually  was,  exclaimed  with 
pleasure  when  he  saw  it,  and 
warmly  praised  Brother  Stephen 
upon  the  loveliness  of  his  work 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


CHAPTER   VII. 

THE    BOOK     GOES     TO     LADY    ANNE 


ND  it  was  well  that  the 
beautiful  book  was  fin- 
ished, for  the  very  next 
afternoon  a  nobleman, 
with  several  attendants,  arrived 
at  the  Abbey  to  see  if  the  work 
were  done.  The  nobleman  was 
Count  Henri  of  Lisieux,  who  had 
been  sent  by  King  Louis  to  bear 
to  Lady  Anne  a  precious  casket 
of  jewels  as  part  of  his  bridal 
gifts  to  her;  and  the  count  had 
also    received     orders    from     the 

king  to  go  to  St.  Martin's  Abbey 

89 


Jj     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

on  his  way,  and  if  the  book  of 
hours  were  finished,  to  take  it 
along  to  the  Lady  Anne. 

Count  Henri  was  greatly 
pleased  when  they  showed  the 
work  to  him,  and  he  said  that  he 
knew  both  King  Louis  and  his 
bride  could  not  help  but  be  de- 
lighted with  it.  And  then,  after 
it  had  been  duly  looked  at  and 
admired,  the  book  was  wrapped  up 
in  a  piece  of  soft,  rich  silk  and  laid 
on  a  shelf  in  the  chapter-house  to 
wait  until  the  next  morning,  when 
Count  Henri  would  take  it  away. 
For  he  had  come  far,  and  the 
Abbot  had  invited  him  to  stay 
overnight  in  the  Abbey  before 
going  on  with  his  journey. 

While  all  this  was  taking  place, 

and  the  book  was  being  examined, 

90 


J  GABRIEL  ANB  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

Gabriel  had  been  quietly  at  work 
in  one  corner  of  the  chapter-house, 
grinding  some  gold ;  and  when  he 
heard  that  Count  Henri  was  go- 
ing away  the  next  morning,  he 
knew  that  if  he  expected  to  put 
his  own  little  page  in  the  book, 
he  must  do  so  some  time  before 
he  went  home  that  evening;  and 
he  did  not  quite  see  how  he  could 
manage  it. 

Late  in  the  afternoon,  however, 
a  little  before  dusk,  all  the  others 
left  the  chapter -house,  Brother 
Stephen  to  go  to  his  own  cell, 
while  the  Abbot  took  Count 
Henri  out  to  show  him  over  the 
Abbey.  And  just  as  soon  as 
they  were  gone,  Gabriel  hastily 
put    down    the    stone    mortar    in 

which  he  was  grinding  the  gold, 

91 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


and,  going  over  to  the  work-table, 
opened  the  drawer  in  which  he 
kept  his  own  things,  and  took  out 
the  page  on  which  he  had  written 
his  little  prayer. 

He  then  went  to  the  shelf  and 
took  down  the  book.  He  felt 
guilty  as  he  unfolded  the  silk 
wrappings,  and  his  hands  trem- 
bled as  he  loosened  the  golden 
clasps,  and  hurriedly  slipped  in 
his  piece  of  parchment.  He  put 
it  in  at  the  very  back  of  the  book, 
after  Brother  Stephen's  last  page. 
Then  carefully  refastening  the 
clasps,  and  again  folding  it  up  in 
its  silken  cover,  he  replaced  the 
book  on  the  shelf. 

Poor    Gabriel    did     not    know 

whether  he  had  done  very  wrong 

or  not  in  taking  this  liberty  with 

92 


H  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

the  painted  book.  He  only  knew 
that  he  could  not  bear  to  have  it 
go  away  without  his  little  prayer 
between  its  covers ;  and  he  thought 
that  now  God  would  surely  notice 
it,  as  he  had  written  it  as  nicely  as 
he  knew  how,  and  had  placed  it 
next  to  Brother  Stephen's. 

By  this  time  it  was  growing 
dark,  and  so  Gabriel  left  the 
Abbey  and  took  his  way  home. 
When  he  reached  their  forlorn 
little  cottage,  he  found  only  a 
scanty  supper  awaiting  him,  and 
very  early  he  went  to  bed ;  for 
they  had  but  little  fire  and  were 
too  poor  to  afford  even  a  single 
candle  to  burn  through  the  long 
winter  evening. 

As  Gabriel  lay  shivering  in  his 
cold  little  bed,  he  wondered  how 

93 


3g  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

long  it  would  be  before  God 
would  grant  his  prayer  for  help. 
And  then  he  wondered  if  God 
would  be  displeased  because  he 
had  dared  to  put  it  in  the  beauti- 
ful book  without  asking  permis- 
sion from  Brother  Stephen  or  the 
Abbot.  And  the  more  he  thought 
of  the  possibility  of  this,  and  of 
all  their  other  troubles,  the  more 
miserable  he  felt,  till  at  last  he 
sobbed  himself  to  sleep. 

The  poor  little  boy  did  not 
know  that  after  he  himself  had 
been  sleeping  for  several  hours, 
Brother  Stephen,  who  had  not 
slept,  came  out  of  his  cell  in  the 
Abbey,  and,  carrying  in  his  hand 
a  small  lamp,  passed  softly  down 
the  corridor  and  into  the  chapter- 
house.      For    Brother    Stephen, 

94 


'Taking  down   the  book 


he   unwrapped  and  unclastoed  it  " 


g     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     fg 

like  many  another  true  artist  who 
has  worked  long  and  lovingly 
upon  some  exquisite  thing,  found 
it  very  hard  to  part  with  that 
which  he  had  made.  He  did  not 
expect  ever  again  to  see  the  beau- 
tiful book  after  it  left  the  Abbey, 
and  so  he  felt  that  he  must  take 
a  farewell  look  at  it  all  by  him- 
self. 

As  he  entered  the  chapter- 
house, he  set  the  lamp  on  the 
table ;  and  then  taking  down  the 
book  and  placing  it  also  on 
the  table,  he  unwrapped  and  un- 
clasped it,  and  seating  himself  in 
front  of  it,  looked  long  and  ear- 
nestly at  each  page  as  he  slowly 
turned  them  over,  one  by  one. 

When  at  last  he  came  to  the 
end,   and   found  a  loose  leaf,  he 

95 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

picked  it  up  in  dismay,  wondering 

if  his  binding  could  have  been  so 

badly  done  that  one  of  the  pages 

had   already   become    unfastened. 

But  his  look  of  dismay  changed 

to  bewilderment  as  he  examined 

the  page  .more   closely,  and   saw 

Gabriel's  little  prayer.      He  read 

this  over  twice,  very  slowly ;  and 

then,  still  holding  the  page  in  his 

hand,  he  sat  for  a  long  time  with 

his    head    bowed ;    and    once    or 

twice  something  that  looked  very 

like  a  tear  fell  on  the  stone  floor 

at  his  feet. 

After   awhile   the  lamp   began 

to  burn  low;  and  Brother  Stephen 

rising,  gave  a  tender  look  to  the 

loose  page  he  had  been  holding, 

and  then  carefully  put  it  back  in 

the  book,   taking    pains   to   place 

96 


Jj    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

it,  as  nearly  as  he  could,  exactly 
as  Gabriel  had  done.  Then,  with 
a  sigh,  he  shut  the  velvet  covers, 
once  more  fastened  the  golden 
clasps,  and,  replacing  the  silken 
wrappings,  laid  the  book  on  the 
shelf,  and  went  back  to  his  cell. 

The  next  morning  Count  Henri 
and  his  escort  made  ready  for 
their  journey  to  Bretagne.  Count 
Henri  himself  placed  the  precious 
book  in  the  same  velvet  bag  which 
held  the  casket  of  jewels  for  the 
Lady  Anne,  and  this  bag  he  hung 
over  his  saddle-bow  directly  in 
front  of  him,  so  that  he  could 
keep  close  watch  and  see  that 
no  harm  befell  King  Louis's 
gifts. 

And  then  he  and  his  soldiers 
mounted  their  horses,  and,  taking 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

a  courteous  leave  of  the  Abbot 
and  the  brotherhood  of  St.  Mar- 
tin's, they  trotted  off  along  the 
frosty  road. 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


CHAPTER    VIII. 

LADY     ANNE    WRITES     TO     THE    KING 

FTER  several  days'  jour- 
ney they  entered  Bre- 
tagne,  and  before  long 
drew  near  to  the  city  of 
Nantes  and  the  castle  of  Lady 
Anne.  This  castle  was  very 
large,  and  had  many  towers  and 
gables  and  little  turrets  with  sharp- 
pointed,  conical  roofs.  There 
was  a  high  wall  and  a  moat  all 
around  it,  and  as  Count  Henri 
approached,  he  displayed  a  little 
banner  given  him  by  King  Louis, 

99 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  C 

and  made  of  blue  silk  embroid- 
ered with  three  golden  lilies. 

At  the  sight  of  this,  the  keep- 
ers of  the  drawbridge  (who  in 
those  days  always  had  to  be  very 
watchful  not  to  admit  enemies  to 
their  lord's  castle)  instantly  low- 
ered the  bridge,  and  Count  Henri 
and  his  guard  rode  over  and  were 
respectfully  received  within  the 
gate. 

They  dismounted  in  the  court- 
yard, and  then,  after  resting  awhile 
in  one  of  the  rooms  of  the  castle, 
Count  Henri  was  escorted  into 
the  great  hall  of  state,  where 
Lady  Anne  was  ready  to  receive 
him. 

This  hall  was  very  large  and 
handsome,  with  a  high,  arched 
ceiling,  and  walls  hung  with  won- 

IOO 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


derful  old  tapestries.  Standing 
about  in  groups  were  numbers  of 
picturesquely  dressed  pages,  ladies- 
in-waiting,  richly  clad,  and  Breton 
gentlemen  gorgeous  in  velvets  and 
lace  ruffles,  for  a  hundred  of  these 
always  attended  Lady  Anne  wher- 
ever she  went.  At  one  end  of 
the  hall  was  a  dais  spread  with 
cloth  of  gold,  and  there,  in  a 
carved  chair,  sat  the  Lady  Anne 
herself.  She  wore  a  beautiful 
robe  of  brocaded  crimson  velvet, 
and  over  her  dark  hair  was  a 
curious,  pointed  head-dress  of 
white  silk  embroidered  with  pearls 
and  gold  thread. 

As  Count  Henri  approached, 
she  greeted  him  very  cordially; 
and  then,  kneeling  before  her, 
he    said : 

IOI 


J|  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  R 

"My  Lady,  I  have  the  happi- 
ness to  deliver  to  your  hands  these 
bridal  gifts  which  our  gracious 
sovereign,  King  Louis,  did  me 
the  honour  to  entrust  to  my 
care." 

And  then,  as  he  handed  to  her 
the  casket  of  jewels  and  the  silken 
package  containing  the  hour  book, 
she  replied : 

"  Sir  Count,  I  thank  you  for 
your  courtesy  in  bearing  these 
gifts  to  me,  and  I  am  well  pleased 
to  receive  them." 

Then  summoning  a  little  page, 
she  told  him  to  carry  the  presents 
up  to  her  own  chamber,  where  she 
might  examine  them  at  her  leisure. 

By  and  by,  Count  Henri  with- 
drew, after  asking  permission  to 
start  the  next  morning  on  his  re- 


I02 


3     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     jj 

turn  to  Paris;  for  he  wished  to 
report  to  the  king  that  he  had 
safely  accomplished  his  errand. 

And  then  Lady  Anne,  having 
given  orders  that  he  and  his  fol- 
lowers  be  hospitably  entertained 
during  their  stay  in  the  castle, 
mounted  the  great  stone  staircase, 
and  went  to  her  own  room,  for 
she  very  much  wanted  to  look  at 
the  gifts  from  King  Louis. 

These  she  found  on  a  table 
where  the  little  page  had  placed 
them.  The  casket  was  uncov- 
ered, while  the  book  was  still 
wrapped  up  in  the  piece  of  silk, 
so  that  one  could  not  tell  just 
what  it  was. 

Lady  Anne  opened  the  casket 
first,  as  it  happened  to  be  nearest 

to  her;  and  she  drew  in  her  breath, 

103 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


and  her  eyes  sparkled  with  pleas- 
ure, as  she  lifted  out  a  magnifi- 
cent necklace,  and  other  rich 
jewels  that  gleamed  and  glittered 
in  the  light  like  blue  and  crimson 
fires.  She  tried  on  all  the  orna- 
ments, and  then,  after  awhile, 
when  she  had  admired  them  to 
her  heart's  content,  she  took  up 
the  silk-covered  package,  and 
curiously  unwrapped  it.  When 
she  saw  what  it  contained,  how- 
ever, her  face  grew  radiant  with 
delight,  and — 

"Ah!"  she  exclaimed  to  her- 
self, "  King  Louis's  gifts  are  in- 
deed princely,  and  this  one  is  the 
most  royal  of  all ! " 

For  King  Louis  had  been  en- 
tirely right    in    thinking    nothing 

would    please    the     Lady    Anne 

104. 


"ST.,  '  < 


Began  slowly  to  turn  over  the  pages  " 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


quite  so  much  as  a  piece  of  fine 
illumination. 

Still  holding  the  book  care- 
fully in  her  hands,  she  at  once 
seated  herself  in  a  deep,  cush- 
ioned chair,  and  began  slowly  to 
turn  over  the  pages,  taking  the 
keenest  pleasure,  as  she  did  so,  in 
every  fresh  beauty  on  which  her 
eyes  fell.  When  she  had  gone 
about  half  through  the  book,  she 
lifted  it  up  to  look  more  closely 
at  an  especially  beautiful  initial 
letter,  and  then,  all  at  once,  out 
fluttered  the  loose  leaf  which  Ga- 
briel had  put  in. 

As  it  fell  to  the  floor,  a  little 
page  near  by  hastened  to  pick  it 
up,  and,  bending  on  one  knee,  pre- 
sented it  to  Lady  Anne.     At  first 

she  frowned  a  little,  for  she  thought, 

105 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  E 

as  had  Brother  Stephen,  that  the 
book  must  have  been  badly  bound. 
But  when  she  took  the  leaf  in 
her  hand,  to  her  surprise,  she  saw- 
that  it  was  different  from  the 
others,  and  that  it  had  not  been 
bound  in  with  them;  and  then 
she  read  over  the  writing  very 
carefully.  When  she  had  fin- 
ished, she  sat  for  some  time,  just 
as  Brother  Stephen  had  done, 
holding  the  page  in  her  hand, 
while  her  face  wore  a  very  tender 
expression. 

Lady  Anne  was  really  deeply 
touched  by  Gabriels  little  prayer, 
and  she  wished  greatly  that  she 
herself  might  find  a  way  to  help 
him  and  his  family  out  of  their 
trouble. 

But  the  more  she  thought  about 

106 


H  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

it,  she  realized  that  she  had  no 
authority  over  a  Norman  noble- 
man, and  that  no  one  in  France, 
except  the  king,  was  powerful 
enough  to  compel  Count  Pierre 
to  release  the  peasant  Viaud  from 
imprisonment. 

So  going  over  to  a  little  writ- 
ing-table, she  took  out  a  thin 
sheet  of  parchment,  a  quaint  goose- 
quill  pen,  and  a  small  horn  full 
of  ink,  and  wrote  a  letter  which 
she  addressed  to  King  Louis. 
Then  she  took  the  loose  leaf  on 
which  Gabriel's  prayer  was  written, 
and,  folding  it  in  with  her  letter, 
tied  the  little  packet  with  a  thread 
of  scarlet  silk  (for  no  one  used 
envelopes  then),  and  sealed  it  with 
some  red  wax.     And  on  the  wax 

she  pressed  a  carved  ring  which 

107 


Jl  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  (g 

she  wore,  and  which  left  a  print 
that  looked  like  a  tiny  tuft  of 
ermine  fur  encircled  by  a  bit  of 
knotted  cord  ;  for  this  was  Lady 
Anne's  emblem,  as  it  was  called, 
and  King  Louis,  seeing  it,  would 
know  at  once  that  the  packet  came 
from  her. 

Then  she  went  down  into  the 
great  hall  of  the  castle,  and  sent 
one  of  her  Breton  gentlemen  to 
bring  Count  Henri.  When  the 
latter  entered,  she  said  to  him : 

"Sir  Count,  it  would  give  me 
great  pleasure  to  keep  you  longer 
as  my  guest,  but  if  you  must  re- 
turn to  Paris  to-morrow,  I  will 
ask  you  to  be  my  bearer  for  a 
little  packet  which  I  am  anxious 
to  send  to  King  Louis." 

Then,  as  she  handed  it  to  him, 

108 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


she  added  with  a  smile,  "  I  give  it 
to  you  now,  for  if  you  ride  early 
in  the  morning,  I  must  leave  my 
Breton  gentlemen  to  do  the  hon- 
ours of  your  stirrup-cup." 

(This  last  was  the  cup  of  wine 
which  it  was  considered  polite  to 
offer  a  departing  guest  as  he 
mounted  his  horse,  and  was  a 
little  ceremony  over  which  Lady 
Anne  liked  to  preside  herself; 
that  is,  when  her  guests  went  away 
at  agreeable  hours.) 

As  Count  Henri  received  the 
packet  from  her,  he  made  a  very 
deep  bow,  and  replied  that  he 
would  be  most  happy  to  serve  the 
Lady  Anne  in  any  way  he  could, 
and  that  he  only  awaited  her  com- 
mand   to    start    at    once    on    his 

journey. 

109 


Jjj    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

"  Nay,"  said  Lady  Anne,  with 
another  little  smile,  "  'tis  no  affair 
of  state  importance !  Only  a 
matter  of  my  own  on  which 
I  have  set  my  heart.  But  I 
will  not  hear  to  your  setting 
forth,  until  you  have  sat  at  my 
table  and  rested  overnight  in  the 
castle." 

To  this  Count  Henri  again 
gallantly  bowed  his  obedience ; 
and  then,  before  long,  Lady  Anne 
led  all  the  company  into  the  great 
banquet-hall,  where  a  number  of 
long  tables  were  set  out  with 
roasted  game,  and  bread  and  wine 
and  the  many  different  cakes  and 
sweetmeats  of  Bretagne. 

The  Lady  Anne  took  her  place 

at  the  head  of  the   longest  table 

of   all,    and    she    placed    Count 

no 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


Henri  at  her  right  hand.  Near 
them  sat  many  of  the  ladies-in- 
waiting,  and  Breton  gentlemen  of 
the  highest  rank ;  while  at  the 
farther  end,  beyond  a  great  silver 
saltcellar  standing  in  the  middle 
of  the  table,  were  seated  those  of 
less  degree. 

The  dishes  were  of  gold  and 
silver,  and  Lady  Anne  her- 
self was  waited  upon  by  two 
noblemen  of  Bretagne,  for  she 
lived  very  magnificently,  as  was 
fitting  for  the  bride  of  King 
Louis. 

When    the    supper    was    over, 

they  all  went  back  into  the  great 

castle  hall,  where  bright  fires  of 

logs    were    blazing    in    the    huge 

fireplaces;  and  as  they  sat  in  the 

firelight,    they    listened      to    the 

in 


J     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

beautiful  songs  and  music  of  two 
troubadours  who  had  that  day 
chanced  to  come  to  the  castle,  and 
who  sang  so  sweetly  that  it  was 
very  late  before  the  company 
broke   up  for  the  night. 

All  through  the  evening,  how- 
ever, in  spite  of  the  pleasant  enter- 
tainment, Lady  Anne,  who  was 
very  sympathetic,  could  not  help 
but  think  many  times  of  poor  little 
Gabriel,  and  how  cold  and  hungry 
and  miserable  he  must  be !  She 
had  been  much  struck,  too,  with 
the  beautiful  way  in  which  he  had 
written  out  and  ornamented  his 
little  prayer,  for  she  was  a  good 
judge  of  such  things;  and,  as  she 
thought  about  it,  she  determined 
some  day  to  see  the  lad  herself. 
Meantime  she  was  very  anxious 

112 


1   GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  £ 

to  help  him  as  soon  as  possible. 
Indeed,  she  felt  much  happier 
when  the  next  morning  came,  and 
Count  Henri  set  out  for  Paris; 
for  then  she  knew  that  her  letter 
and  Gabriel's  little  written  page 
were  on  their  way  to  King 
Louis. 

In  due  time,  Count  Henri  ar- 
rived safely  at  the  king's  palace, 
and  delivered  the  packet  from 
Lady  Anne.  And  when  King 
Louis  broke  the  wax  seal,  and 
read  the  letter  and  Gabriel's  little 
prayer,  he,  too,  was  deeply  touched. 
Lady  Anne's  letter  explained  to 
him  about  finding  the  loose  page 
in  the  beautiful  book  he  had 
sent  her,  and  asked  that  he  would 
see  to  it  that  Count  Pierre  set  the 
boy's  father  free. 

"3 


J|  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

This  King  Louis  at  once  de- 
termined to  do,  for  he  was  a  just 
and  kind-hearted  monarch,  and 
during  his  reign  did  much  to 
lighten  the  taxes  and  oppression 
of  the  peasant-folk ;  and,  more- 
over, in  this  trouble  of  Gabriel's 
father,  he  now  took  an  especial 
interest,  as  it  gave  him  great 
pleasure  to  grant  any  wish  of 
the  Lady  Anne,  whom  he  loved 
deeply. 

So  that  very  day  he  sent  for  a 
trusty  messenger,  and  after  ex- 
plaining things  to  him,  directed 
him  to  set  out  as  soon  as  possi- 
ble for  St.  Martin's  Abbey,  and 
there  to  seek  out  Brother  Stephen 
and  inquire  about  the  little  peas- 
ant boy,  Gabriel  Viaud.  And 
then,  if  he  found  everything  to  be 

114 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

true  that  Gabriel  had  said  in  his 
prayer,  he  was  to  act  according  to 
further  orders  which  King  Louis 
gave  him. 


IIS 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


CHAPTER    IX. 

THE     KING'S     MESSENGER 

,OW  while  all  these  things 
had  been  going  on,  poor 
Gabriel  had  been  grow- 
ing more  wretchedly  un- 
happy day  by  day.  His  people 
had  become  poorer  and  poorer, 
and  the  long,  cold  winter  was 
upon  them.  They  had  almost 
given  up  hope  of  the  release  of 
peasant  Viaud  from  prison,  and 
did  not  know  where  they  could 
get  bread  or  fire  to  keep  them 
alive     through     the    bitter    cold. 


H  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  K 

Sometimes  Gabriel  thought  with 
despair  of  how  much  he  had 
hoped  from  his  little  prayer  !  For 
he  was  sure,  by  this  time,  that 
God  was  angry  with  him  for  dar- 
ing to  put  it  in  the  beautiful  book. 

And  to  add  the  last  touch  to 
his  distress,  he  had  been  obliged 
to  give  up  his  work  and  lessons 
at  the  Abbey;  for  Brother  Stephen 
had  been  ill  for  a  time,  and  unable 
to  paint,  and  all  the  other  monks 
had  colour-grinders  of  their  own. 
So  Gabriel,  who  could  not  afford 
to  be  idle  even  for  a  few  days, 
had  been  forced  to  seek  employ- 
ment elsewhere. 

The  only  work  he  could  find 
was  with  a  leather  dresser  in  the 
village  of  St.  Martin's,  and 
though  it  was  very  hard  and  dis* 

H7 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


tasteful  to  him,  he  felt  that  he 
must  keep  at  it,  as  he  could  thus 
earn  a  few  pennies  more  each  day 
than  he  could  as  colour-grinder 
at  the  Abbey.  And  yet,  with  all 
his  hard  toil,  the  little  sum  he 
brought  home  at  night  was  far 
from  enough  to  keep  them  all 
from  want,  to  say  nothing  of  pay- 
ing the  tax  which  still  hung  over 
them;  and  so  every  day  they  be- 
came more  hopeless  and  discour- 
aged. 

Indeed,  in  those  times,  when  a 
peasant  family  fell  under  the  dis- 
pleasure of  their  noble  lord,  it 
was  a  bitter  misfortune,  for  there 
were  few  places  to  which  they 
might  turn  for  help. 

And  it  seemed  to  Gabriel  espe- 
cially hard  to  bear  all  their  troubles 


1  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  K 

in  the  gracious  Christmas  season  ; 
for  it  was  now  past  the  middle  of 
December.  Always  before  they 
had  had  enough  for  their  happy 
little  Christmas  feast,  and  some 
to  spare.  They  had  always  had 
their  sheaf  of  wheat  put  by  for 
the  birds ;  and  for  two  seasons 
past  Gabriel's  father  had  let  him 
climb  up  the  tall  ladder  and  fasten 
the  holiday  sheaf,  bound  with  its 
garland  of  greens,  to  the  roof  of 
the  little  peaked  and  gabled  dove- 
cote that  stood  on  top  of  a  carved 
pole  in  the  centre  of  the  farm- 
yard. For  every  Norman  peas- 
ant always  wishes  the  birds,  too, 
to  be  happy  at  the  joyous  Christ- 
mas-tide. 

And    always,  every  Christmas 

eve,  when  Gabriel  and  his   little 

219 


J|  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  K 

brothers  and  sister  had  gone  to 
bed,  they  had  set  their  wooden 
shoes  in  a  row  on  the  hearthstone; 
and  then  in  the  morning  when 
they  wakened  up,  they  always 
found  that  the  blessed  Christ- 
child  had  been  there  in  the  night, 
and  filled  all  the  little  shoes  with 
red  apples  and  nuts. 

But  this  Christmas-time  every- 
thing was  so  sad  and  changed, 
they  were  sure  even  the  Christ- 
child  would  forget  them.  And, 
day  by  day,  the  little  supply  of 
coarse  meal  for  their  black  bread 
grew  smaller  and  smaller,  and  the 
snow  became  deeper,  and  the  win- 
try winds  blew  more  cold  and 
cruelly. 

Meantime,  King  Louis's  mes- 
senger was  travelling   as  fast   as 

1 20 


3      GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     ffi 

he  could,  and  three  days  before 
Christmas  he  arrived  at  St.  Mar- 
tin's Abbey.  The  Abbot  was 
greatly  surprised  to  see  him,  and 
still  more  so  when  he  asked  if  he 
might  speak  privately  with  Brother 
Stephen.  This  the  Abbot  granted, 
though  he  was  very  anxious  to 
know  the  messenger's  errand ;  for 
he  could  think  of  no  reason  for  it, 
unless  there  had  been  something 
wrong  with  King  Louis's  book. 
So  he  was  quite  uneasy  as  he  saw 
the  messenger  enter  Brother  Ste- 
phen's cell  and  close  the  door. 

Brother  Stephen,  too,  was  at 
first  much  surprised  when  his  vis- 
itor told  him  he  had  come  from 
King  Louis  to  inquire  about  a 
peasant  boy  by  the  name  of  Ga- 
briel Viaud;  though  in  a  moment 

121 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


it  flashed  through  his  mind  that 
Gabriels  prayer  had  found  its 
way  to  the  palace,  and  that  the 
answer  was  coming. 

He  said  nothing  of  this,  how- 
ever, but  when  the  messenger 
asked  if  he  had  had  such  a  boy 
for  colour-grinder,  he  eagerly  an- 
swered : 

"  Yes,  and  there  lives  no  man- 
lier and  sweeter-spirited  lad  in  all 
France ! " 

"Is  it  true,"  continued  the  mes- 
senger, "  that  Count  Pierre  de 
Bouchage  hath  imprisoned  his 
father  for  failure  to  pay  a  tax, 
and  that  the  family  are  now  in 
sore  distress  ? " 

"  Yes,  that  also  is  true,"  replied 

the  monk  very  sadly.     And  then 

he  said  beseechingly  :  "  But  surely 

12a 


3     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     E 

King    Louis    will     help     them  ? 

Surely    our    gracious     sovereign 

will   not  allow  such  injustice  and 

cruelty  ?  " 

Here  the  messenger  answered  : 

"Nay,  our  sovereign  is  indeed 

a  generous  monarch !      Else  had 

he  not  been  touched  by  the  little 

prayer    which     the     peasant     lad 

placed  in  the  book  thou   madest 

for  the  Lady  Anne.      Though   I 

dare  say  thou  knewest  naught  of 

it  "  (here  Brother  Stephen  smiled 

gently,  but  said  nothing),  "yet  so 

the  lad  did.     And  'twas   because 

of  that  scrap  of  parchment  falling 

under  the  eyes  of    King    Louis, 

that  I  have  journeyed  all  the  way 

from  Paris.     And,"  he  added,  as 

he  remembered    the    heavy  snow 

through"  which  he  had  ridden,  "  it 

123 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

takes  a  stout  heart  and  a  stouter 
horse  to  brave  thy  Norman  roads 
in  December ! " 

Then  he  asked  Brother  Ste- 
phen a  great  many  more  questions, 
and  inquired  what  road  to  take  in 
order  to  find  Count  Pierre's  castle, 
and  also  the  Viaud  cottage.  And 
then  when  he  had  satisfied  him- 
self about  all  these  matters,  he 
went  back  to  the  great  hall  of  the 
Abbey,  where  the  Abbot  was 
slowly  pacing  the  floor,  telling 
his  beads  as  he  walked. 

The  Abbot,  though  very  cu- 
rious as  to  the  reason  of  the 
messenger's  visit,  asked  him  no 
questions  other  than  if  the  book 
for  Lady  Anne  had  been  entirely 
satisfactory;  and  he  felt  relieved 

when  the  messenger  assured  him 

124 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  JE 

that  so  far  as  he  knew  both  the 
king  and  Lady  Anne  had  been 
greatly  delighted  with  it.  Then, 
after  talking  a  little  while  about 
Brother  Stephen's  artistic  work, 
the  messenger  briefly  explained 
to  the  Abbot  his  errand,  and  told 
him  that  King  Louis  had  ordered 
him  to  make  his  inquiries  about 
Gabriel  as  quietly  as  possible. 

As  he  heard,  the  Abbot  raised 
his  eyebrows  and  looked  some- 
what disapproving,  when  he  real- 
ized that  the  peasant  lad  who  had 
dared  to  put  his  page  into  the 
beautiful  book  was  the  same 
little  colour-grinder  who  had  had 
the  boldness  to  speak  to  him,  one 
day  in  the  garden,  and  ask  him 
to  take  off  Brother  Stephen's 
chain.       However,    whatever    he 

125 


J    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOVJK  BOOK     E 

may  have  thought,  he  kept  it  to 
himself;  he  treated  the  messen- 
ger with  much  courtesy,  and,  on 
bidding  him  good  night,  invited 
him  to  stay  as  a  guest  of  the 
Abbey  so  long  as  he  chose. 

The  next  morning  the  messen- 
ger rode  to  the  Viaud  farm,  and, 
though  he  did  not  go  into  the 
cottage,  he  looked  it  over  care- 
fully and  the  land  about  it;  and 
then  he  took  the  highway  that  led 
to  the  castle  of  Count  Pierre  de 
Bouchage. 

When  he  reached  the  castle, 
he  asked  to  see  Count  Pierre,  and 
so  was  taken  into  the  great  hall, 
where  the  count  received  him  in 
a  very  haughty  manner.  He  be- 
came somewhat  more  polite,  how- 
ever, when  he  learned  that  King 

126 


I)     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     E 

Louis  had  sent  the  messenger  to 
him ;  though  he  looked  decidedly 
blank  when  the  latter  presented 
to  him  a  letter  written  on  parch- 
ment and  fastened  with  a  wax 
seal  stamped  with  the  kings 
emblem,  which  was  the  print 
of  a  little  porcupine  with  the 
quills  on  his  back  standing  up 
straight,  and  a  crown  on  top  of 
them. 

On  seeing  this  letter,  Count 
Pierre  looked  blank  because  the 
truth  was,  that,  like  many  other 
noble  lords  at  that  time,  he  could 
read  only  with  great  difficulty. 
But  then  the  messenger  rather 
expected  this,  and  so  he  asked 
permission  to  read  the  parchment 
to  him,  and  Count  Pierre  frown- 

ingly  assented. 

127 


J9  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  E 

Indeed,  though  the  messenger 
pretended  not  to  notice  his  angry 
looks,  he  frowned  blacker  and 
blacker  as  the  reading  went  on. 
For  King  Louis  requested  in  the 
letter  that  Count  Pierre  at  once 
release  from  prison  in  his  castle 
one  Jacques  Viaud,  peasant  on 
his  estate.  And  the  king  fur- 
ther said  that  he  himself  wished 
to  buy  the  Viaud  cottage  and 
farm,  together  with  a  good-sized 
piece  of  ground  that  adjoined  it 
(the  messenger,  in  looking  it  over 
that  morning,  had  selected  a  piece 
of  land  which  was  much  better  soil 
than  the  most  of  the  Viaud  farm), 
and  he  stated  that  for  this  pur- 
pose he  had  sent  by  his  messenger 
a  certain  sum  in  gold  pieces. 

The  king  mentioned  also  that 
128 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


he  would  like  to  have  the  flock  of 
sheep,  with  the  addition  of  fifty 
more  than  had  been  taken  from 
them,  restored  to  the  Viaud  family. 
And,  finally,  he  said  that  he  de- 
sired Count  Pierre  to  do  these 
things  in  honour  of  his  king's  ap- 
proaching marriage  with  the  Lady 
Anne.  For  when  kings  and 
queens  marry,  it  is  generally  cus- 
tomary for  them,  and  for  many 
of  the  loyal  noblemen  who  are 
their  subjects,  to  bestow  gifts  and 
benefits  upon  the  poor  people,  so 
that  every  one  may  be  as  happy 
as  possible  on  the  royal  wedding- 
day. 

Now  Count  Pierre  really  did 
not  care  a  fig  to  do  honour  to 
King  Louis's  marriage,  and  he 
was  very  angry  to    be  asked    to 

129 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


release  a  peasant  whom  he  had 
imprisoned,  and  to  restore  flocks 
which  he  had  seized  ;  and  espe- 
cially was  he  furious  at  the  re- 
quest to  buy  the  land,  for  he  did 
not  wish  to  sell  it,  and  so  to  lose 
control  over  the  peasant-folk  who 
lived  there. 

But,  nevertheless,  in  spite  of 
his  wrath,  the  count  knew  well 
enough  that  he  had  no  real  right 
to  do  as  he  had  done,  and  that 
King  Louis  knew  it  also ;  and 
that  therefore  the  very  best  thing 
he  could  do  was  to  obey  the 
king's  wishes  at  once. 

King     Louis    had     made     his 

letter  a  polite  request  rather  than 

a  command,  because  some  of  his 

unruly  subjects,  like  Count  Pierre, 

were  proud  and  difficult  to  man- 

130 


H  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  K 

age,  and  he  wished  to  settle  mat- 
ters pleasantly  and  peaceably,  if 
possible.  And  so,  in  asking  him 
to  honour  the  royal  wedding, 
he  gave  the  count  an  excuse  to 
yield  to  his  kings  wishes,  without 
hurting  his  pride  so  much  as 
if  he  were  obliged  to  obey  a 
command. 

Count  Pierre  began  to  see  this, 
too;  and,  moreover,  he  knew  that, 
notwithstanding  the  politeness  of 
his  letter,  the  king  had  plenty 
of  soldiers,  and  that  he  would  not 
hesitate  to  send  them  to  the  Castle 
de  Bouchage,  if  necessary,  to  bring 
its  lord  to  terms.  And  he  very 
wisely  reflected  that  to  fight  King 
Louis  would  be  a  much  more 
dangerous  and  expensive  under- 
taking than  the  private  war  with 

131 


H  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

the  Baron  of  Evreux,  which  he 
already  had  on  his  hands. 

Before  yielding  to  the  requests 
in  the  letter,  however,  Count 
Pierre  wished  to  satisfy  himself 
that  the  messenger  had  correctly 
read  it  to  him.  And  so,  haughtily 
demanding  it  for  a  few  minutes, 
he  hurried  out  of  the  hall,  and 
sent  a  page  scampering  off  to 
bring  to  him  a  troubadour;  for 
one  or  more  of  these  wandering 
singers  were  always  to  be  found 
in  every  nobleman's  castle,  and 
the  count  knew  that  most  of  them 
could  read. 

When    in    a    few  minutes    the 

page   came  back,   followed,  close 

at  his  heels,  by  a  man   in  motley 

dress,  with  a  viol  hung  over  his 

shoulders,  Count  Pierre,  without 

132 


9     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     gg 

waiting  to  greet  the  latter,  thrust 
the  parchment  into  his  hands  with 
the  gruff  command : 

"  There,  fellow!  read  this  letter 
for  me  instantly !  and  if  thou 
makest  a  single  mistake,  I  will 
have  thee  strangled  with  the 
strings  of  thine  own  viol,  and 
tumbled  off  the  highest  tur- 
ret of  this  castle  before  set  of 
sun ! 

At  this  fierce  threat,  the  trou- 
badour began  at  once  to  read, 
taking  care  to  make  no  mistakes. 
Count  Pierre  listened  attentively 
to  every  word,  and  when  the  trou- 
badour came  to  the  end,  having 
read  it  exactly  as  the  messen- 
ger had  done,  the  count  angrily 
snatched  it  from  his  hands,  and, 
swallowing    his   rage  as   best    he 

133 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

could,  went  slowly  back  to  the 
castle  hall. 

Then,  after  a  few  moments' 
silence,  he  very  ungraciously  and 
ill-naturedly  gave  orders  that  peas- 
ant Viaud  be  released  from  prison, 
and  the  sheep  sent  back.  He 
made  a  very  wry  face  over  the 
fifty  extra  ones,  and  did  not  look 
at  all  anxious  to  celebrate  King 
Louis's  approaching  wedding. 

And  then  he  took  the  gold 
pieces  which  the  messenger  offered 
him,  and  reluctantly  scrawled  his 
name  (it  was  all  he  could  write, 
and  that  very  badly)  to  a  piece  of 
parchment  which  the  messenger 
had  ready,  and  which,  when 
Count  Pierre  had  signed  it, 
proved  that  he  had  sold  to  King 
Louis  the  land  and  cottage,  and 

*34 


1    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


no  longer  held  control  over  peas- 
ant Viaud  or  any  of  his  family. 

When  this  was  done,  the  mes- 
senger, bidding  the  nobleman  a 
courteous  farewell,  left  the  latter 
still  very  angry  and  scowling,  and, 
above  all,  lost  in  amazement  that 
King  Louis  should  take  all  this 
trouble  on  account  of  a  poor,  un- 
known peasant,  who  had  lived  all 
his  life  on  a  tiny  farm  in  Nor- 
mandy !  And  as  no  one  ever 
explained  things  to  him,  Count 
Pierre  never  did  know  how  it  had 
all  come  about,  and  that,  however 
much  against  his  will,  he  was  do- 
ing his  part  toward  helping  an- 
swer Gabriel's  little  prayer. 


*35 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


CHAPTER    X. 

GABRIEL'S     CHRISTMAS 

HEN  the  messenger 
reached  the  courtyard  of 
the  castle,  he  found  peas- 
ant Viaud  awaiting  him 
there.  The  poor  man  looked  very- 
pale  and  wan  from  his  imprison- 
ment, and  his  face  pitifully  showed 
what  anxiety  he  had  suffered  in 
thinking  about  his  family  left  with 
no  one  to  help  them.  His  clothes, 
too,  were  thin  and  worn,  and  he 
shivered  in    the    cold    December 

wind.      Noticing  this,  the  messen- 

136 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

ger  at  once  sent  word  to  Count 
Pierre  that  he  was  sure  King 
Louis  would  be  highly  gratified, 
if,  in  further  honour  of  his  coming 
marriage,  the  count  would  supply 
peasant  Viaud  with  a  warm  suit 
of  clothes  before  leaving  the 
castle. 

This  message  was  almost  too 
much  for  Count  Pierre  to  bear, 
but  he  did  not  dare  to  refuse. 
And  the  messenger  smiled  to 
himself  when,  by  and  by,  a  page 
came  and  called  Gabriel's  father 
into  the  castle,  from  which,  in  a 
little  while,  he  came  out,  warmly 
clad,  and  quite  bewildered  at  all 
that  was  happening  to  him. 

As  they  set  out  together  for 
the  Viaud  cottage,  peasant  Viaud 
walking,  and  the  messenger  riding 

137 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


very  slowly,  the  latter  explained 
to  him  all  about  Gabriel's  little 
prayer  in  the  beautiful  book,  and 
how  Lady  Anne  had  sent  it  to 
King  Louis,  to  whom  he  owed  his 
release  from  prison.  But  the  mes- 
senger added  that,  aside  from  the 
lad's  father  and  mother,  the  king 
did  not  wish  any  one,  not  even 
Gabriel  himself,  to  know  how  it 
had  all  come  about. 

For  King  Louis  declared  that 
he  himself  did  not  deserve  any 
thanks,  but  that  the  good  God 
had  only  chosen  the  Lady  Anne 
and  himself  and  Count  Pierre 
(though  the  latter  did  not  know 
it)  as  the  means  of  answering 
Gabriel's  prayer,  and  of  helping 
the  Christ-child  bring  happiness 
at    the    blessed    Christmas -time. 

138 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  jj 

For  King  Louis  had  not  for- 
gotten that  the  great  day  was 
near  at  hand. 

Of  the  promised  return  of  the 
sheep,  and  the  buying  of  the  farm 
by  the  king,  the  messenger  said 
nothing  then;  and  when  they  had 
nearly  reached  the  cottage,  he  took 
leave  of  peasant  Viaud  and  rode 
back  to  the  Abbey.  For,  having 
finished  the  king's  errand,  before 
going  away,  he  wanted  to  say 
good-bye  to  the  Abbot  and 
brothers  of  St.  Martin's,  and  also 
to  get  some  of  his  belongings 
which  he  had  left  at  the  Abbey. 

A  few  minutes  after  the  mes- 
senger had  left  him,  peasant  Viaud 
reached  the  cottage  and  raised  the 
latch,  —  but  then  it  is  no  use  try- 
ing to  tell  how  surprised  and  happy 

139 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  E 

they  all  were!  how  they  hugged 
and  kissed  each  other,  and  laughed 
and  cried ! 

And  then,  when  the  first  excite- 
ment was  over,  they  began  soberly 
to  wonder  what  they  would  do 
next ;  for  they  still  feared  the  dis- 
pleasure of  Count  Pierre,  and  still 
did  not  know  where  to  turn  to 
raise  the  tax,  or  to  help  their 
poverty. 

"If  only  he  had  not  taken  the 
sheep,"  said  Gabriel's  mother, 
sadly,  "at  least  I  could  have  spun 
warm  clothes  for  all  of  us  !  " 

But  even  as  she  spoke,  a  loud 

"  Baa  !    Baa  !  "   sounded   from   up 

the  road,  and  presently  along  came 

a  large  flock  of  sheep  followed  by 

one  of  Count  Pierre's  shepherds, 

who,  without  saying  a  word  to  any 

140 


a     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

one,  skilfully  guided  them  into  the 
Viaud  sheepfold,  and  there  safely 
penned  them  in ;  then,  still  with- 
out a  word,  he  turned  about  and 
went  off  in  the  direction  of  the 
castle. 

Gabriel's  father  and  mother, 
who  from  the  cottage  window  had 
watched  all  this  in  silent  amaze- 
ment, looked  at  each  other,  too 
bewildered  to  speak.  Then  they 
went  out  together  to  the  sheep- 
fold,  and  peasant  Viaud,  who 
began  to  realize  that  this,  too, 
must  be  part  of  King  Louis's 
orders,  explained  to  his  wife  that 
which  the  messenger  had  told  him. 
When  he  had  finished,  they  went 
back,  hand  in  hand,  to  the  house, 
their  eyes  filled  with  happy  tears, 

and  in  their  hearts  a  great  tender- 

141 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


ness  for  the  little  son  who  had 
brought  help  to  them. 

Just  before  dark,  that  same 
afternoon,  the  king's  messenger, 
having  taken  leave  of  the  Abbey 
folk,  once  more  passed  along  the 
highroad.  On  his  way,  he  was 
particular  to  stop  at  the  Viaud 
cottage,  where  he  contrived  to 
have  a  few  minutes'  talk  alone 
with  Gabriel's  mother,  and  then 
wishing  her  a  merry  Christmas, 
he  spurred  his  horse,  and  rode 
along  on  his  journey  back  to 
Paris. 

As  he  neared  St.  Martin's  vil- 
lage, he  passed  a  little  peasant 
boy,  in  a  worn  blouse,  walking 
toward  the  country;  and  had  he 
known  that  this  same  lad  was  the 

Gabriel  because  of  whom,  at  King 

142 


He  passed  a   little  peasant  boy  " 


3     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

Louis's  order,  he  had  ridden  all 
the  way  from  Paris,  he  would  cer- 
tainly have  looked  at  the  boy  with 
keen  interest. 

While  for  his  part,  had  Ga- 
briel known  that  the  strange  horse- 
man was  a  messenger  from  the 
king,  and  that  he  had  that  day 
played  a  very  important  part  in 
the  affairs  of  the  Viaud  family,  — 
had  he  known  this,  —  he  surely 
would  have  stood  stock-still  and 
opened  his  eyes  wide  with  amaze- 
ment ! 

But  the  messenger  was  ab- 
sorbed in  his  own  thoughts,  and 
so  rode  swiftly  on;  while  poor 
Gabriel  was  too  sad  and  wretched 
to  pay  much  attention  to  any  one. 

As  the  lad  drew  near  home, 
however,  all  at  once  he  fancied  he 

143 


a    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     E 

heard  the  bleating  of  sheep.  At 
this  he  pricked  up  his  ears  and 
began  to  run,  his  heart  suddenly- 
beating  very  fast  with  excitement ! 

When  he  reached  the  sheep- 
fold,  sure  enough,  there  was  no 
mistaking  the  sounds  within.  He 
opened  the  door  and  hurried 
through  the  thatched  shed,  noting 
with  delight  the  rows  of  woolly 
backs  glistening  in  the  twilight, 
and  then,  bursting  into  the  cot- 
tage, rushed  up  to  his  father  and 
kissed  and  hugged  him  with  all 
his  might ! 

Indeed,  Gabriel  was  so  happy 
and  excited  that  he  did  not  real- 
ize that  he  was  not  at  all  sur- 
prised with  their  good  fortune. 
For  miserable  as  he  had  been  for 
weeks,  and  though  he  had  thought 

144 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  E 

that  he  had  quite  despaired  of  his 
prayer  being  answered,  yet  deep 
down  in  his  heart,  without  knowing 
it,  all  the  while  he  had  cherished  a 
strong  hope  that  it  would  be. 

Nor  was  Brother  Stephen  sur- 
prised either,  when,  at  barely  day- 
break the  next  morning,  before 
going  to  his  work,  Gabriel  hur- 
ried up  to  the  Abbey  and  told 
him  all  about  it.  His  face  beamed 
with  delight,  however,  and  he 
seemed  almost  as  happy  over  it 
all  as  Gabriel  himself.  He  smiled, 
too,  but  said  nothing,  as  the  lad 
wondered  over  and  over  what 
God  had  done  to  Count  Pierre, 
to  make  him  willing  to  free  his 
father  and  restore  the  sheep  !  He 
only  said,  as  he  gently  patted  Ga- 
briel's hair : 

145 


|I  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  E 

"There,  there,  little  one!  the 
good  God  hath  many  ways  of 
softening  men's  hearts,  and  never 
thou  mind  in  what  manner  he 
hath  chosen  to  manage  the  Count 
Pierre ! " 

Just  then  one  of  the  monks 
went  past  the  open  door,  his  arms 
full  of  evergreens,  and  carrying  in 
his  hand  a  pot  of  the  pretty  white 
flowers  that  the  Norman  peasant 
folk  call  Christmas  roses.  Seeing 
him,  Brother  Stephen  told  Gabriel 
that  he  must  go  and  help  the 
brothers  trim  the  Abbey  church 
for  the  joyous  service  of  the  mor- 
row; and  so  with  another  affec- 
tionate little  pat,  he  went  out  to 
do  his  part  in  arranging  the  holi- 
day greens  and  garlands  and  tall 

wax   candles,  while  Gabriel    hur- 

146 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  jj 

ried  off  to  his  work  in  the  vil- 
lage. 

The  little  boy  was  so  happy, 
though,  over  the  things  that  had 
happened  at  home,  that  he  went 
about  all  day  in  a  sort  of  wonder- 
ing dream.  And  that  evening  as 
he  went  home  from  his  work,  very 
tired,  but  still  dreaming,  the  early 
Christmas-eve  stars  shone  and 
twinkled  so  radiantly  over  his 
head  and  the  snow  sparkled  so 
brightly  under  his  feet,  that  he 
fairly  tingled  through  and  through 
with  the  nameless,  magic  happi- 
ness of  the  blessed  season ! 

And  when  he  reached  home, 
and  sat  down  next  to  his  father 
while  they  ate  their  scanty  supper, 
they  all  felt  so  glad  to  be  together 

again    that   nobody    minded   that 

147 


J     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     £ 

the  pieces  of  black  bread  were 
smaller  than  ever,  and  that  when 
the  cold  wind  blew  through  the 
crevices  of  the  cottage  walls,  there 
was  not  enough  fire  oh  the  hearth 
to  keep  them  from  shivering. 

Indeed,  they  were  all  so  much 
happier  than  they  had  been  for 
many  weeks,  that  when  Gabriel 
and  the  younger  children  went  to 
bed,  the  latter,  with  many  little 
gurgles  of  laughter,  arranged  their 
little  wooden  shoes  on  the  hearth, 
just  as  they  had  always  done  on 
Christmas  eve. 

For    they  said    to   each   other, 

Jean,  and  Margot,  and  little  Guil- 

laume,  that  surely  the  good  God 

had  not  forgotten  them  after  all! 

Had   he  not  brought  back   their 

father  and  the  sheep  ?  And  surely 

148 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


he  would  tell  the  little  Christ- 
child  to  bring  them  a  few  Christ- 
mas apples  and  nuts! 

Gabriel,  however,  took  no  part 
in  their  talk,  and  he  did  not  set 
his  shoes  on  the  hearth  with  the 
others;  not  that  he  feared  they 
would  be  forgotten,  but  rather 
because  he  thought  that  he  had 
already  asked  for  so  much  and 
been  so  generously  answered,  that 
he  had  had  his  share  of  Christ- 
mas happiness. 

His  father  was  freed  from 
prison,  and  the  flock  of  sheep, 
with  fifty  more  than  they  had  had 
before,  were  back  in  the  fold ; 
and  though  they  were  not  yet  re- 
lieved from  the  tax,  nor  was  their 
land  restored  to  them,  as  he  had 
prayed,  yet  he  felt  sure  that  these, 

*49 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

too,  would  come  about  in  some 
way. 

And  so,  considering  all  these 
things,  he  did  not  quite  like  to  set 
out  his  wooden  shoes,  and  thus 
invite  the  Christ-child  to  give  him 
more;  for  he  knew  the  Christ- 
child  had  a  great  many  shoes  to 
attend  to  that  night.  So  Gabriel, 
as  he  made  himself  ready  for  bed, 
pretended  not  to  hear  the  chatter  of 
his  little  brothers  and  sister,  nor 
to  notice  what  they  were  doing. 

When  peasant  Viaud,  however, 
saw  them  standing  their  little 
empty  shoes  in  front  of  the 
meagre  fire,  he  bowed  his  head  on 
his  hands,  and  the  tears  trickled 
through  his  fingers.  But  the 
mother  smiled  softly  to  herself,  as 
she    kissed    each  of  the  children 

i. So 


3      GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     ffij 

and  tucked  them  into  their  worn 
sheepskin  covers. 

Next  morning,  at  the  first  peep 
of  day,  every  one  in  the  cottage 
was  wide  awake;  and  as  soon  as 
they  opened  their  eyes,  the  chil- 
dren all  jumped  out  of  bed  and 
ran  to  the  hearth  with  little 
screams  of  delight.  For  there 
stood  the  little  wooden  shoes,  — 
Gabriel's,  too,  though  he  had  not 
put  them  there,  —  and  even  a 
larger  one  apiece  for  the  father 
and  mother,  and  the  blessed 
Christ-child  had  not  forgotten  one ! 

Only  instead  of  apples  and 
nuts,  they  were  filled  with  the 
most  wonderful  bonbons;  strange 
sugar  birds,  and  animals,  and  can- 
died fruits  such  as  no  peasant 
child  in  Normandy  had  ever  be- 

*5* 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


fore  seen ;  for  they  were  sweet- 
meats that  no  one  but  the  cooks  of 
old  Paris  knew  just  how  to  make. 

And  then,  as  with  eager  fingers 
the  children  drew  out  these  mar- 
vels, down  in  the  toe  of  each  shoe 
they  found  a  little  porcupine  of 
white  sugar  with  pink  quills  tipped 
with  a  tiny,  gilded,  candy  crown ; 
and  last  of  all,  after  each  little 
porcupine,  out  tumbled  a  shining 
yellow  gold  piece  stamped  with 
the  likeness  of  King  Louis. 

Even  the  larger  shoes  were  filled 

with  bonbons,  too,  and  from  the 

toe  of  the  mother's  out  dropped  a 

gold  piece,  like  the   others,   only 

larger.      But  when  the  father,  with 

clumsy  hands,  emptied   his   shoe, 

instead  of  a  gold  piece,  there  fell 

out  a  small  parchment  roil  fastened 

152 


1]    GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

with  a  silken  cord,  and  showing 
at  one  corner  a  wax  seal  bearing 
the  print  of  the  little  royal  por- 
cupine and  crown. 

Peasant  Viaud  gazed  at  it  for 
a  few  minutes,  in  utter  bewilder- 
ment, and  then  handing  it  to  Ga- 
briel, who  was  standing  by,  he  said : 

"  Here,  child,  'tis  a  bit  of  writ- 
ing, and  thou  art  the  only  one  of 
us  who  can  read.  See  if  Brother 
Stephen's  lessons  have  taken  thee 
far  enough  to  make  out  the  mean- 
ing of  this ! " 

Gabriel  took  the  roll  and  eagerly 
untied  the  cord,  and  then  he  care- 
fully spelled  out  every  word  of 
the  writing,  which  was  signed  by 
Count  Pierre  de  Bouchage. 

For  it  was  the  very  same  parch- 
ment  which   King   Louis's   mes- 

153 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

senger  had  made  Count  Pierre 
sign  to  prove  that  he  had  sold 
to  the  king,  for  a  certain  sum  of 
gold,  the  old  Viaud  farm,  together 
with  a  piece  of  good  land  adjoin- 
ing it ;  and  then,  at  the  end  of  the 
deed,  as  the  writing  was  called, 
there  were  a  few  lines  from  King 
Louis  himself,  which  said  that  in 
honour  of  the  blessed  Christmas- 
time the  king  took  pleasure  in 
presenting  to  peasant  Viaud,  and 
his  heirs  for  ever,  everything  that 
he  had  bought  from  Count  Pierre. 
When  Gabriel  had  finished 
reading,  no  one  spoke  for  a  little 
while ;  it  was  so  hard  to  realize 
the  crowning  good  fortune  that 
had  befallen  them.  Peasant  Viaud 
looked  fairly  dazed,  and  the  mother 
laughed  and  cried  as  she  snatched 

154 


1)  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

Gabriel  to  her  and  kissed  him 
again  and  again.  The  younger 
children  did  not  understand  what 
it  all  meant,  and  so  went  on 
munching  their  sweetmeats  with- 
out paying  much  attention  to  the 
little  piece  of  parchment  which 
Gabriel  still  held  in  his  hand. 

As  for  Gabriel,  he  really  had 
had  no  idea  that  any  one  could 
possibly  be  so  happy  as  he  himself 
was  at  that  moment !  He  had 
not  the  least  notion  of  how  it  had 
all  come  about ;  he  only  knew 
that  his  heart  was  fairly  bursting 
with  gratitude  to  the  dear  God 
who  had  answered  his  little  prayer 
so  much  more  joyously  and  won- 
derfully than  he  had  ever  dared 
to  dream  of ! 

In  his  excitement  he  ran  out  of 
*55 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  £ 

the  house  and  hurried  into  the 
sheepfold,  where  he  patted  the  soft 
woolly  backs  of  each  of  the  sheep, 
and  then  he  raced  around  the 
snowy  meadows  trying  to  realize 
that  all  these  belonged  to  his 
family  for  ever!  And  that  Count 
Pierre  could  never  again  imprison 
his  father  or  worry  him  with 
heavy  taxes ! 

But  the  wonders  of  this  won- 
derful day  were  not  yet  over ;  for 
presently,  as  Gabriel  raised  his 
eyes,  he  saw  a  strange  horseman 
coming  down  the  road  and  looking 
inquiringly  in  the  direction  of  the 
Viaud  cottage.  Then  seeing  the  boy 
standing  in  the  meadow,  the  horse- 
man called  out: 

"  Ho,  lad !     Is  this  the  farm  of 

the  peasant  Viaud  ?  " 

156 


H   GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  jj 

"Yes,  sir,"  answered  Gabriel, 
coming  up  to  the  road ;  and  then, 

"Art  thou  Gabriel?"  asked  the 
rider,  stopping  and  looking  curi- 
ously at  the  little  boy. 

When  again  Gabriel  wonder- 
ingly  answered,  "  Yes,  sir,"  the 
stranger  dismounted,  and,  after 
tying  his  horse,  began  deliberately 
unfastening  the  two  fat  saddle- 
bags hanging  over  the  back  of  the 
latter;  and  loading  himself  with 
as  much  as  he  could  carry,  he 
gave  Gabriel  an  armful,  too,  and 
walked  toward  the  cottage. 

To  the  surprised  looks  and 
questions  of  Gabriel's  father  and 
mother,  he  only  said  that  the 
Christ-child  had  been  in  the  castle 
of  the  Lady  Anne  of  Bretagne, 
and    had    ordered    him    to   bring 

157 


CJ  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

certain  things  to  the  family  of  a 
Norman  peasant  boy  named  Ga- 
briel Viaud. 

And  such  delightful  things  as 
they  were !  There  was  a  great 
roll  of  thick,  soft  blue  cloth,  so 
that  they  could  all  be  warmly  clad 
without  waiting  for  the  mother  to 
spin  the  wool  from  the  sheeps' 
backs.  There  were  nice  little 
squirrel-fur  caps  for  all  the  chil- 
dren ;  there  were  more  yellow 
gold  pieces ;  and  then  there  was 
a  large  package  of  the  most  en- 
chanting sweetmeats,  such  as  the 
Bretons  make  at  Christmas-time; 
little  "  magi-cakes,"  as  they  were 
called,  each  cut  in  the  shape  of 
a  star  and  covered  with  spices  and 
sugar;  curious  old-fashioned  can- 
dies and  sugared  chestnuts  ;  and  a 

158 


a  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

pretty  basket  filled  with  small 
round  loaves  of  the  fine,  white 
bread  of  Bretagne ;  only  instead  of 
the  ordinary  baking,  these  loaves 
were  of  a  special  holiday  kind, 
with  raisins,  and  nuts,  and  dried 
sweet- locust  blossoms  sprinkled 
over  the  top. 

Indeed,  perhaps  never  before 
had  so  marvellous  a  feast  been 
spread  under  a  peasant  roof  in 
Normandy !  All  were  beside 
themselves  with  delight;  and  while 
the  younger  children  were  dancing 
round  and  round  in  happy  bewil- 
derment, Gabriel  snatched  up  a 
basket,  and  hurriedly  filling  it 
with  some  of  the  choicest  of 
the  sweetmeats,  started  off  at  a 
brisk  run  for  the  Abbey;  for  he 
wanted    to    share    some    of   his 

159 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


Christmas  happiness  with  Brother 
Stephen. 

When  he  reached  the  Abbey, 
his  eyes  bright  with  excitement, 
and  his  cheeks  rosy  from  the  crisp 
cold  air,  and  poured  out  to  Brother 
Stephen  the  story  of  their  fresh 
good  fortune,  the  monk  laughed 
with  delight,  and  felt  that  he,  too, 
was  having  the  happiest  Christ- 
mas he  had  ever  known. 

And  then,  by  and  by,  when  he 
took  Gabriel  by  the  hand  and  led 
him  into  the  Abbey  church  for  the 
beautiful  Christmas  service,  as  the 
little  boy  knelt  on  the  stone  floor 
and  gazed  around  at  the  lovely  gar- 
lands of  green,  and  the  twinkling 
candles  and  white  Christmas  roses 
on   the  altar,  half- hidden  by  the 

clouds    of    fragrant    incense    that 

1 60 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

floated  up  from  the  censers  the 
little  acolytes  were  swinging  to 
and  fro,  —  as  he  listened  to  the 
glorious  music  from  the  choir,  and 
above  all,  as  he  thought  of  how 
the  dear  God  had  answered  his 
prayer,  the  tears  sprang  to  his 
eyes  from  very  joy  and  grati- 
tude! And  perhaps  that  Christ- 
mas morning  no  one  in  all  France, 
not  even  King  Louis  himself,  was 
quite  so  happy  as  the  little  peas- 
ant boy,  Gabriel  Viaud. 


mi 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


CHAPTER    XI. 

THE    KING'S     ILLUMINATOR 

ND  to  say  that  he  was 
happier  than  even  King 
Louis,  is  saying  a  very 
great  deal ;  for  King 
Louis  spent  the  day  most  delight- 
fully in  Bretagne,  in  the  castle  of 
his  bride  to  be,  the  Lady  Anne. 
And  then,  just  after  the  holiday 
season  had  passed,  early  in  Janu- 
ary, he  and  Lady  Anne  were 
married  with  great  ceremony  and 
splendour. 


3g   GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  IJ 

After  the  wedding,  for  three 
months,  the  king  and  queen  lin- 
gered in  Bretagne;  enjoying  them- 
selves by  night  with  magnificent 
entertainments  in  the  castle,  and 
by  day  in  riding  over  the  frosty 
fields  and  in  hunting,  of  which 
both  of  them  were  very  fond. 
And  then  in  April,  when  the  first 
hawthorn  buds  were  beginning 
to  break,  they  journeyed  down 
to  Paris  to  live  in  the  king's 
palace. 

Before  long,  King  Louis  and 
Queen  Anne  decided  to  make  a 
number  of  improvements  in  this 
palace ;  and  as  they  both  were 
great  lovers  of  beautiful  books, 
they  determined,  among  other 
things,  to  build  a  large  writing- 
room  where  they  could  have  skit 

163 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


ful  illuminators  always  at  work 
making  lovely  books  for  them. 

When  this  room  was  finished, 
and  they  began  to  think  of  whom 
they  would  employ,  the  first  one 
they  spoke  of  was  Brother  Stephen, 
whose  exquisite  work  on  the  book 
of  hours  had  so  delighted  them. 
But  then,  much  as  they  wished  to 
have  him  in  the  palace,  they  did 
not  think  it  possible  to  do  so,  as 
they  knew  he  belonged  to  the 
brotherhood  of  St.  Martin's  Ab- 
bey, and  so  of  course  had  taken 
vows  to  spend  his  whole  life  there. 

It  chanced,  however,  soon  after 
this,  that  King  Louis  happened 
to  have  a  little  talk  with  the  mes- 
senger he  had  sent  to  the  Abbey 
at  Christmas  time  to  see  about  Ga- 
briel And  this  messenger  told  the 


J)  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

king  that  while  there  the  Abbot, 
in  speaking  to  him  of  Brother 
Stephen's  work,  had  said  that  the 
latter  really  wished  to  leave  the 
brotherhood  and  go  into  the  world 
to  paint;  and  that,  though  he  had 
refused  his  request  to  be  freed 
from  his  vows,  yet  the  monk  had 
worked  so  faithfully  at  King 
Louis's  book  that  he  thought  he 
had  earned  his  freedom,  and  that 
perhaps  he,  the  Abbot,  had  done 
wrong  in  forcing  him  to  stay  at 
the  Abbey  if  he  wished  to  study 
his  art  elsewhere. 

In  short,  he  had  as  much  as 
said  that  if  Brother  Stephen  ever 
again  asked  for  his  freedom,  he 
would  grant  it;  and  this  showed 
that  the  Abbot  had  relented  and 

unbent  a  great  deal  more  than  any 

165 


J     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     E 

one  could  ever  have  believed  pos- 
sible. 

When  King  Louis  heard  what 
the  messenger  told  him,  he  was 
greatly  pleased  ;  and  after  talking 
it  over  with  the  queen,  he  de- 
cided to  send  the  same  messenger 
post-haste  back  to  the  Abbey  to 
ask  for  the  services  of  Brother 
Stephen  before  the  Abbot  might 
again  change  his  mind. 

Now  King  Louis  was  a  very 
liberal  monarch,  and  both  he  and 
Queen  Anne  liked  nothing  better 
than  to  encourage  and  help  along 
real  artists.  And  so  they  thought 
that  they  would  supply  Brother 
Stephen  with  money  so  that  he 
could  travel  about  and  study  and 
paint  as  he  chose,  even  if  he  pre- 
ferred always  to  paint  larger  pic* 

166 


J  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  g 

tures  rather  than  to  illuminate 
books;  though  they  hoped  that 
once  in  awhile  he  might  spend  a 
little  time  in  their  fine  new  writ- 
ing-room. 

When  the  messenger  started, 
they  told  him  to  explain  all  this 
to  Brother  Stephen,  and  let  the 
latter  plan  his  work  in  whatever 
way  best  pleased  him. 

But  the  queen  gave  particular 
orders  that,  if  possible,  the  mes- 
senger was  to  bring  the  peasant 
boy,  Gabriel  Viaud,  back  to  the 
palace  with  him ;  for  she  thought 
the  lad's  work  on  the  page  where 
he  had  written  his  little  prayer 
showed  such  promise  that  she 
wished  to  see  him,  and  to  have 
him  continue  his  training  in  the 

beautiful  art  of  illumination. 

167 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK 


The  messenger,  having  thus 
received  his  orders,  at  once  set 
out  again  for  Normandy;  and  he 
found  this  second  journey  much 
more  pleasant  than  the  one  he  had 
made  before,  through  the  winter 
snows.  For  this  time  he  rode 
under  tall  poplar-trees  and  be- 
tween green  hedgerows,  where  the 
cuckoos  and  fieldfares  sang  all 
day  long.  And  when,  after  sev- 
eral days'  travelling,  he  drew  near 
St.  Martin's  Abbey,  the  country 
on  either  side  of  the  road  was 
pink  with  wild  roses  and  meadow- 
sweet, just  as  it  had  been  a  year 
before,  when  Gabriel  used  to 
gather  the  clusters  of  field-flowers 
for  Brother  Stephen  to  paint  in 
the  beautiful  book. 

Indeed,  Gabriel   still   gathered 

168 


J   GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK  fj 

the  wild  flowers  every  day,  but 
only  because  he  loved  them;  for 
though,  since  their  better  fortunes, 
he  was  again  studying  and  work- 
ing with  Brother  Stephen,  the 
latter  was  then  busy  on  a  long 
book  of  monastery  rules,  with  only 
here  and  there  a  coloured  initial 
letter,  and  which  altogether  was 
not  nearly  so  interesting  as  had 
been  the  book  of  hours  with  its 
lovely  painted  borders. 

And  so  when  the  messenger 
reached  the  Abbey,  and  made 
known  his  errand,  they  were  both 
overjoyed  at  the  prospect  King 
Louis  offered  them. 

After  talking  with  the  mes- 
senger, the  Abbot,  true  to  his 
word,  in  a  solemn  ceremony,  freed 

Brother  Stephen   from   his  vows 

169 


GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 


t 


of  obedience  to  the  rules  of  St. 
Martin's  brotherhood ;  and  then 
he  gave  both  him  and  Gabriel 
his  blessing. 

Brother  Stephen,  who  had  been 
too  proud  to  ask  a  second  time 
for  his  freedom,  was  now  delighted 
that  it  had  all  come  about  in  the 
way  it  did,  and  that  he  could 
devote  his  time  to  painting  any- 
thing he  chose. 

Gabriel,  too,  was  enchanted  at 
the  thought  of  all  that  he  could 
do  and  learn  in  the  king's  palace ; 
and  though  he  felt  it  hard  to  leave 
his  home,  Queen  Anne  had  kindly 
made  it  easier  for  him  by  promis- 
ing that  sometimes  he  might  come 
back  for  a  little  visit. 

So  in  a  few  days  he  and  Brother 

Stephen  had  made  all  their  prep- 

170 


3  GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK  g 

arations  to  leave;  and  they  set 
out,  Gabriel  going  with  the  mes- 
senger directly  to  King  Louis's 
palace  in  Paris ;  while  Brother 
Stephen,  taking  the  bag  of  gold 
pieces  which  the  king  and  queen 
had  sent  for  him,  travelled  to 
many  of  the  great  cities  of  Europe, 
where  he  studied  the  wonderful 
paintings  of  the  world's  most 
famous  masters,  and  where  he 
himself  made  many  beautiful  pic- 
tures. In  this  way  he  spent  a 
number  of  happy  months. 

And  then,  just  as  a  great  many 
other  people  do,  who  find  out  that 
as  soon  as  they  are  not  compelled 
to  do  a  certain  kind  of  work,  they 
really  like  it  very  much  better  than 
they  thought,  so,  Brother  Stephen, 

being   no  longer  obliged    to  illu- 

171 


J|     GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR.  BOOK     g 

minate  books,  all  at  once  discov- 
ered that  he  really  enjoyed  paint- 
ing them  more  than  anything  else 
in  the  world. 

And  so  it  was  that,  by  and  by, 
to  the  gratification  of  the  king  and 
queen,  and  above  all  to  the  great 
delight  of  Gabriel,  he  made  his 
way  to  the  great  writing-room  of 
the  palace  in  Paris.  And  there, 
in  the  doing  of  his  exquisite  artis- 
tic work,  he  passed  the  rest  of  his 
long  and  happy  life. 

And  through  all  the  years  the 

warm  love  and  friendship  between 

himself  and  Gabriel  was  as  sweet 

and  beautiful  and  as  unchanging 

as  any  of  the  white  and   golden 

lilies   that    they    painted    in  their 

rarest   books.      For   Gabriel,  too, 

became  one  of  the  finest   illumi- 

172 


3      GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK     g 

nators  of  the  time,  and  his  work 
was  much  sought  for  by  the  great 
nobles  of  the  land. 

Indeed,  to  this  day,  many  of 
the  wonderful  illuminations  that 
were  made  in  that  writing-room 
are  still  carefully  kept  in  the  great 
libraries  and  museums  of  France 
and  of  Europe.  And  some  time, 
if  ever  you  have  the  happiness 
to  visit  one  of  these,  and  are  there 
shown  some  of  the  painted  books 
from  the  palace  of  King  Louis 
XII.  and  Queen  Anne,  if  the 
work  is  especially  lovely,  you  may 
be  quite  certain  that  either  Brother 
Stephen,  or  Gabriel,  or  perhaps 
both  of  them  together,  had  a  hand 
in  its  making. 

THE  END. 


173 


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Cloth  decorative,  12mo,  illustrated $1.75 

The  clash  of  broad-sword  on  buckler,  the  twanging 
©f  bow-strings  and  the  cracking  of  spears  splintered  by 
whirling  maces  resound  through  this  stirring  tale  of 
knightly  daring-do . 

THE  YOUNG  CAVALIERS 

By  I.  M.  B.  of  K. 

Cloth  decorative,  12mo,  illustrated $1.75 

"There  have  been  many  scores  of  books  written  about  the 
Charles  Stuarts  of  England,  but  never  a  merrier  and  more 
pathetic  one  than  'The  Young  Cavaliers.'  " — Family  Herald. 

"The  story  moves  quickly,  and  every  page  flashes  a  new 
thrill  before  the  reader,  with  plenty  of  suspense  and  excite- 
ment. There  is  valor,  affection,  romance,  chivalry  and  humor 
in  this  fascinating  tale." — Kansas  City  Kansan. 
A— 2 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNG  PEOPLE 


THE  MARJORY-JOE  SERIES 

By  Alice  E.  Alien 
Each  one  volume,  cloth  decorative,  12mo,  illus- 
trated, per  volume .         ...    $1.50 

JOE,  THE  CIRCUS  BOY  AND  ROSEMARY 

These  are  two  of  Miss  Allen's  earliest  and  most  suc- 
cessful stories,  combined  in  a  single  volume  to  meet  the 
insistent  demands  from  young  people  for  these  two 
particular  tales. 

THE  MARTIE  TWINS:    Continuing  the  Ad- 
ventures of  Joe,  the  Circus  Boy 

"  The  chief  charm  of  the  story  is  that  it  contains  so 
much  of  human  nature.  It  is  so  real  that  it  touches 
the  heart  strings." — New  York  Standard. 

MARJORY,  THE  CIRCUS  GIRL 

A  sequel  to  "Joe,  the  Circus  Boy,"  and  "The  Martie 
Twins." 

MARJORY  AT  THE  WILLOWS 

Continuing  the  story  of  Marjory,  the  Circus  Girl. 

"  Miss  Allen  does  not  write  impossible  stories,  but 
delightfully  pins  her  little  folk  right  down  to  this  life 
of  ours,  in  which  she  ranges  vigorously  and  delight- 
fully."— Boston  Ideas. 

MARJORY'S  HOUSE  PARTY:  Or,  What  Hap- 
pened at  Clover  Patch 

"  Miss  Allen  certainly  knows  how  to  please  the  chil- 
dren and  tells  them  stories  that  never  fail  to  charm." 
— Madison  Courier. 

MARJORY'S  DISCOVERY 

This  new  addition  to  the  popular  MARJORY-JOE 
SERIES  is  as  lovable  and  original  as  any  of  the  other 
creations  of  this  writer  of  charming  stories.  We  get 
little  peeps  at  the  precious  twins,  at  the  healthy  minded 
Joe  and  sweet  Marjory.  There  is  a  bungalow  party, 
which  lasts  the  entire  summer,  in  which  all  of  the 
characters  of  the  previous  MARJORY-JOE  stories 
participate,  and  their  happy  times  are  delightfully  dc 
picted, 
A~3 


TUB  PAWS  COMPANT8 

WE  YOUNG  PIONEER  SERIES 

By  Habbison  Adams 

Bach   ISmc,   cloth   decorative,    illustrated,    per 
volume $1.6$ 

THE  PIONEER  BOYS  OF  THE  OHIO;    Ob, 

CliEAEINQ    THE    WILDERNESS. 

"  Such  books  as  this  are  an  admirable  means  of  stimu< 
lating  among  the  young  Americans  of  to-day  interest  in 
the  story  of  their  pioneer  ancestors  and  the  early  days  07 
the  Republic.'!  —  Boston  Globe. 

THE  PIONEER  BOYS  ON  THE  GREAT  LAKES: 

Ob,  On  the  Trail  op  the  Iroquois. 

"  The  recital  of  the  daring  deeds  of  the  frontier  is  not 
only  interesting  but  instructive  as  well  and  shows  ihe 
Sterling  type  of  character  which  these  days  of  self-reliance 
and  trial  produced.'!  —  American  Tourist,  Chicago. 

THE  PIONEER  BOYS  OF  THE  MISSISSIPPI! 

Or,  The  Homestead  in  the  Wilderness. 
"The  story  is  told  with  spirit,  and  is  full  of  adven* 
tare."-— New  York  Sun. 

THE  PIONEER  BOYS  OF  THE  MISSOURI; 

Ob,  In  the  Country  of  the  Sioux. 

a  Vivid  in  style,  vigorous  in  movement,  full  of  dramatic 
Situations,  true  to  historic  perspective,  this  story  is  a 
capital  one  for  boys." — Watchman  Examiner,  New  York 
City. 

THE  PIONEER  BOYS  OF  THE  YELLOW* 

STONE l    Or,  Lost  in  the  Land  of  Wonders. 
i     "There  is  plenty  of  lively  adventure  and  action  and 
<the  story  is  well  told." — Duluth  Herald,  Duluth,  Minn. 

THE  PIONEER  BOYS  OF  THE  COLUMBIA? 

Or,  In  the  Whjjerness  of  the  Great  Northwest. 
*  The  story  is  full  of  spirited  action  and  contains  muc| 
rateable  historical  information." — Boston  Herald, 


BOOKS  FOB  YOUNkJ  PEOPLE 


THE  FRIENDLY  TERRACE  SERIES 

By  Harriet  Lixmmis  Smith 
Each  one  volume,  cloth,  decorative,  12mo,  illus- 
trated, per  volume  fl.TS 

THE  GIRLS  OF  FRIENDLY  TERRACE 

"It  is  a  book  that  cheers,  that  inspires  to  higher 
thinking;  it  knits  hearts;  it  unfolds  neighborhood  plans 
in  a  way  that  makes  one  tingle  to  try  carrying  them 
out,  and  most  of  all  it  proves  that  in  daily  life,  threads 
of  wonderful  issues  are  being  woven  in  with  what 
appears  the  most  ordinary  of  material,  but  which  in 
the  end  brings  results  stranger  than  the  most  thrilling 
fiction." — Belle  Kellogg  Towne  in  The  Young  People'* 
Weekly,  Chicago. 

PEGGY  RAYMOND'S  VACATION 

"It  is  a  clean,  wholesome,  hearty  story,  well  told 
and  full  of  incident.  It  carries  one  through  experiences 
that  hearten  and  brighten  the  day." — Utica,  N.  Y., 
Observer. 

PEGGY   RAYMOND'S    SCHOOL   DAYS 

"  It  is  a  bright,  entertaining  story,  with  happy  girls, 
good  times,  natural  development,  and  a  gentle  earnest- 
ness of  general  tone." — The  Christian  Register,  Boston. 

THE  FRIENDLY  TERRACE  QUARTETTE 

"The  story  is  told  in  easy  and  entertaining  style 
and  is  a  most  delightful  narrative,  especially  for  young 
people.  It  will  also  make  the  older  readers  feel  younger, 
for  while  reading  it  they  will  surely  live  again  in  the 
days  of  their  youth." — Troy  Budget. 

PEGGY  RAYMOND'S  WAY 

"  The  author  has  again  produced  a  story  that  is 
replete  with)  wholesome  incidents  and  makes  Peggy 
more  lovable  than  ever  as  a  companion  and  leader?' 
— World  of  Books. 

"It  possesses  a  plot  of  much  merit  and  through  its 
324   pages  it  weaves   a  tale   of  Jove   and   of   adventure, 
which  ranks  it  among  the  best  K^ks  for  girls." — Cohofcz 
American. 
A— 5 


THE  PAGE  COMPANY'S 


FAMOUS  LEADERS  SERIES 

By  Chables  H.  L.  Johnston 
Each  large  12mo,  cloth  decorative,  illustrated, 
per  volume 

FAMOUS  CAVALRY  LEADERS 

"  More  of  such  books  should  be  written,  books  thafl 
acquaint  young  readers  with  historical  personages  in  a 
pleasant,  informal  way."  —  New  York  Sun. 

FAMOUS  INDIAN  CHIEFS 

"  Mr.  Johnston  has  done  faithful  work  in  this  volume, 
and  his  relation  of  battles,  sieges  and  struggles  of  these 
famous  Indians  with  the  whites  for  the  possession  of 
America  is  a  worthy  addition  to  United  States  History." 
—  New  York  Marine  Journal. 

FAMOUS  SCOUTS 

"  It  is  the  kind  of  a  book  that  will  have  a  great  fascina* 
tion  for  boys  and  young  men."  —  New  London  Day. 

FAMOUS  PRIVATEERSMEN  AND  ADVEN- 
TURERS OF  THE  SEA 

"The  tales  are  more  than  merely  interesting;  they  are 
entrancing,  stirring  the  blood  with  thrilling  force."  — 
Pittsburgh  Post. 

FAMOUS  FRONTIERSMEN  AND  HEROES  OF 
THE  BORDER 

"The  accounts  are  not  only  authentic,  but  distinctly 
readable,  making  a  book  of  wide  appeal  to  all  who  love 
the  history  of  actual  adventure."  —  Cleveland  Leader. 

FAMOUS  DISCOVERERS  AND  EXPLORERS 

OF  AMERICA 

"The  book  is  an  epitome  of  some  of  the  wildest  and 
bravest  adventures  of  which  the  world  has  known."  — 
Brooklyn  Daily  Eagle. 

FAMOUS  GENERALS  OF  THE  GREAT  WAR 

Who  Led  the  United  States  and  Her  Allies  to  a  Glo- 
rious Victory. 

"The  pages  of  this  book  have  the  charm  of  romance 
without  its  unreality.     The  book  illuminates,  with  life- 
like portraits,  the  history  of  the  World  War."  —  Roche* 
ter  Post  Express. 
A— 6 


BOOKS  FOR  YOUNO  PEOPLE 


FAMOUS  LEADERS  SERIES  (Con.) 

By  Edwin  Wildman 

FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY.— First 
Series 

"Are  these  stories  interesting?  Let  a  boy  read  them;  and" 
tell  you." — Boston  Transcript. 

FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  INDUSTRY.— Second 
Series 

"As  fascinating  as  fiction  are  these  biographies,  which  em- 
phasize their  humble  beginning  and  drive  home  the  truth  that 
just  as  every  soldier  of  Napoleon  carried  a  marshal's  baton  in 
his  knapsack,  so  every  American  youngster  carries  potential 
success  under  his  hat." — New  York  World. 

THE  FOUNDERS  OF  AMERICA  (Lives  of  Great 
Americans  from  the  Revolution  to  the  Monroe 
Doctrine) 

"How  can  one  become  acquainted  with  the  histories  of  some 
of  the  famous  men  of  the  United  States?  A  very  good  way  is  to 
read  'The  Founders  of  America,'  by  Edwin  Wildman,  wherein 
the  fife  stories  of  fifteen  men  who  founded  our  country  are 
told." — New  York  Post. 

FAMOUS  LEADERS  OF  CHARACTER  (Lives  of 
Great  Americans  from  the  Civil  War  to  Today) 

"An  informing,  interesting  and  inspiring  book  for  boys." — 
Presbyterian  Banner. 

".  .  .  Is  a  book  that  should  be  read  by  every  boy  in  the 
whole  country.  .  .  ." — Atlanta  Constitution. 

FAMOUS  AMERICAN  NAVAL  OFFICERS 
With  a  complete  index. 

By  Charles  Lee  Lewis 
Professor,  United  States  Naval  Academy,  Annapolit 
"Professor  Lewis  does  not  make  the  mistake  of  bringing  to- 
gether simply  a  collection  of  biographical  sketches.  In  con- 
nection with  the  life  of  John  Paul  Jones,  Stephen  Decatur, 
and  other  famous  naval  officers,  he  groups  the  events  of  the 
period  in  which  the  officer  distinguished  himself,  and  combines 
the  whole  into  a  colorful  and  stirring  narrative." — Boston 
Herald. 
A— 7 


TUN  fAUK  UUMfAISra 


STORIES  BY  EVALEEN  STEIN 

Each,  one  volume,  cloth  decorative,  12mo,  illustrated, 
with  a  jacket  in  color $1.65 

THE  CHRISTMAS  PORRINGER 

This  story  happened  many  hundreds  of  years  ago  in  the 
quaint  Flemish  city  of  Bruges  and  concerns  a  little  girl  named 
Karen,  who  worked  at  lace-making  with  her  aged  grand- 
mother. 

GABRIEL  AND  THE  HOUR  BOOK 

"No  works  in  juvenile  fiction  contain  so  many  of  the  ele- 
ments that  stir  the  hearts  of  children  and  grown-ups  as  well  as 
do  the  stories  so  admirably  told  by  this  author." — Louisville 
Daily  Courier. 

A  LITTLE  SHEPHERD  OF  PROVENCE 

"The  story  should  be  one  of  the  influences  in  the  life  of  every 
child  to  whom  good  stories  can  be  made  to  appeal." — Public 
Ledger. 

THE  LITTLE  COUNT  OF  NORMANDY 

"This  touching  and  pleasing  story  is  told  with  a  wealth  of 
interest  coupled  with  enlivening  descriptions  of  the  country 
where  its  scenes  are  laid  and  of  the  people  thereof ." — Wilming- 
ton Every  Evening. 

WHEN  FAIRIES  WERE  FRIENDLY 

"The  stories  are  music  in  prose — they  are  like  pearls  on  a 
chain  of  gold — each  word  seems  exactly  the  right  word  in  the 
right  place;  the  stories  sing  themselves  out,  they  are  so  beauti- 
fully expressed." — The  Lafayette  Leader. 

PEPIN:  A  Tale  of  Twelfth  Night 

1     "This  retelling  of  an  old  Twelfth  Night  romance  is  a  creation 
almost  as  perfect  as  her  'Christmas  Porringer.' " — Ltxingtom 
Herald. 
A— 8 


-v^    .     « 


